Today I was reflecting upon a time when a friend and I were having an argument about whether or not marijuana is a gateway drug. She had recently read a book about effective arguing and was testing strategies from it, which was obviously very frustrating for me to combat. My frustration is probably the reason I remember this event so well even though it was around two years ago.
She argued that a higher percentage of hard-core drug users had probably done pot before when compared to non-hard-core drug users and I argued that a higher percentage of hard-core drug users had probably done pot before when compared to non-hard-core drug users. You can read that sentence again if you think I made a typo, but it's supposed to repeat itself because yes, we were both actually arguing the same thing!
The difference was that she thought this higher percentage labels marijuana a gateway drug, while I thought that what would label marijuana a gateway drug is if doing marijuana caused people to become hard-core drug users. The discrepancy wasn't in whether or not pot is a gateway drug because we both agreed that weed smokers are more likely to use hard-core drugs. The difference was in our definition of gateway drug. She thought this higher concentration of marijuana usage among hard-core drug users means that marijuana is a gateway drug, while I thought that being labeled as a gateway drug requires direct causation.
I didn't really answer the question the title of this post implied. So if you read this post hoping to get some insight about marijuana, ask me for my favorite scholarly article on the subject. (I would post it here but the Economist banned me from viewing it online since my subscription is up, but of course I saved the hard copy.) The answer to "Is marijuana a gateway drug?" is still debatable, but the question you really should think about is what the other person is arguing the next time you have a disagreement. You'd be surprised how often he or she actually thinks the same thing as you but just conceptualizes it differently.
Nice post regarding causation.
ReplyDeleteJust as a thought experiment lets look at this as economists:
Skip marijuana and only do hard drugs. Marijuana is less potent and more expensive (both cost and price). Take a 1/8th as $20 and a hit of acid as $5 (taking street prices). As an assumption say an 1/8th of marijuana will get 5 units of ‘high’. That means each unit has a price of $2. At all levels a unit of marijuana will not get you higher than one unit of ‘acid’. From a utility perspective buying and using marijuana makes almost no sense in comparison with acid (or many other hard drugs). It would make more sense, if your intention was to get high, to buy acid and distributed according to how high you wished to get.
The reason why marijuana is preferred is because of consumer preferences. These preferences are not based on reason but rather tradition. A stigma exists against hard drugs (and an exceptionally high level of misunderstanding). If reason were used on the micro level, and consumers were rational, then marijuana would either have a lower price or a smaller segment of the market.
It is also important to understand the costs to the consumer that exist outside the market. Drug enforcement is much more prohibitive regarding hard drugs. This increases the implicit cost of hard drug use. Other health related costs would also increase the price of hard drug use (say dental problems regarding methamphetamine use). However, many hard drugs, like acid, have lower long-term health costs associated with their use (look it up).
2) On the macro side the liberal economist’s response would be to legalize drugs and heavily regulate their use. This would cause vastly improved production (both regarding quantity and quality). Due to regulation, say Pigouvian taxes, demand would be curbed to approximately the level the government thought appropriate. The black market would be greatly diminished due to higher production costs and inferior quality (which is why many current health problems exist with drug use).
In short by legalizing drugs the government would end the war on drugs and win the war and the same time. Unfortunately, people who support the prohibition of drugs are using a ‘moral,’ not ‘economic,’ defense. A ‘moral’ argument based on religion is NOT scientific and therefore is beyond the bounds of economics.