Volume 2.1 - Crime and Punishment- Fall 1997

Title: Legalize It? A Demand-Side Strategy for the War on Drugs

Author: A.C. Pritchard

Abstract: Pritchard argues that the government's war on drugs, which directs enforcement efforts toward drug sellers rather than drug users, spawns excessive violence. A better plan would be to make drug possession and selling legal and punish only drug use, albeit more stringently than current practice. Economics shows that legalizing the possession and sale of drugs, while keeping drug use illegal, will diminish the violence that is an all-too-familiar side effect of the current means of waging the war on drugs. At the same time, such a strategy would guard against a steep escalation in drug use.

About the Author: A.C. Pritchard is Senior Counsel, Office of General Counsel, Securities and Exchange Commission. He will serve as a visiting Assistant Professor at the Northwestern University School of Law in the spring of 1998. He is a member of the Council of Scholars, Foundation for Economic Education. Pritchard received his M.P.P. from the Harris School of Public Policy and his J.D. from the University of Virginia.

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