kn
/v
i
target incarceration more effectively. Low-
level dealers are now locked up on the ratio-
nale that it makes drugs harder to get and
more expensive. Yet, as is well known (by ev-
eryone, apparently, except the policymakers),
the prices of cocaine and heroin have fallen
over the decades. The only published effort to
estimate the effects of increased incarceration
on cocaine prices, co-authored by Steven Lev-
itt of Freakonomics fame, found that during a
period in which incarceration for drugs
ple calculation of the cost-effectiveness of
locking up drug offenders, as measured by
the reduction in cocaine consumption per $1
million spent by the government, shows that
drug treatment even taking into account
the notoriously high dropout and relapse
rates. There's simply no question that cutting
sentences for drug dealers would make mini-
mal difference in the price or availability of
cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine.
tion rate, as opposed to, say, cutting it by one-
third or by two-thirds, would be optimal. The
point is simply that drastic reductions in in-
carceration and thus reduction in costs to
both society and to the many drug users who
are locked up because they sell to support their
habits would be possible without embarking
on the uncharted waters of legalization.
plight of state budgets and, in the case of