[hamac]

Om on-topic te blijven, zal ik even wat passages geven uit de studie betreft Portugal waar Geert mee afkwam:

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The multiplicity of possible drug control policies can be divided into three broad
categories: legalization, prohibition, and decriminalization.

Optie 1 en 3 zijn dus niet louter semantisch verschillend.

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Using a difference in differences model, this paper finds a positive correlation between decriminalization in Portugal and both homicide and drug mortality rates relative to other European Union countries.
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Nonetheless, the results suggest that decriminalization may not have been desirable in the Portuguese case, which is indeed consistent with a body of literature that offers much support for legalization, but little theoretical basis for decriminalization.
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This paper considers possible explanations for the Portuguese data and urges economists to be cautious when advocating decriminalization as a compromise between prohibition and legalization.

Verder dan het abstract en/of conclusie heeft Geert wellicht niet gelezen en dan heeft hij alleen maar gelezen wat hij wilde lezen.

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The primary economic argument against drug prohibition is that as long as demand for drugs exists, the market will supply them – if not through legal
channels, then through a gray or black market. The illegal drug trade, according to the theory, not only results in efficiency losses, but also numerous negative externalities ranging from public health consequences of unregulated drugs to violence associated with black market conflict resolution.
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From a theoretical perspective, the negative externalities of a black market must be balanced against those of increased drug consumption, which should
result from legalization or weaker enforcement of drug control policies.
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While reducing user penalties or decriminalizing should be expected to have at least some positive effect on drug consumption, which in turn should mean a larger market in illicit drugs and greater negative externalities associated with it, Dills et al. also point out that drug enforcement can increase tension in the drug market and lead to increased violence.
Dills et al. outline the longstanding economic argument against drug prohibition, that the lack of a legal method for conflict resolution means that economic agents instead resolve business disputes through violence.
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Miron explains that one mechanism by which drug enforcement might increase homicides is by “crowding out” other law enforcement activities (Miron 2001). This could mean police are preoccupied with enforcing drug laws and therefore neglect property crime, which leads to extrajudicial conflict resolution, or that violent inmates may be released earlier if people
incarcerated for drug use or possession are crowding the prison system.

Nonviolent drug users could also be made more likely to commit violent crime by being incarcerated with more serious offenders. Drug prohibition, and even user penalties, could also increase violent crime by making drug users unwilling to resolve unrelated disputes through legal means.
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This effect is more likely in a case where users may face stiff criminal penalties, as was the situation in Portugal prior to decriminalization.
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Miron’s empirical analysis finds that drug seizures correlate strongly and positively with homicide rates.

Er kleven blijkbaar wat nadelen aan een strikt anti-drugsbeleid.

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MacCoun also compares the trend in Italian drug mortality to those of Spain and
Germany, concluding that decriminalization did not have a large effect on Italian drug deaths.
While MacCoun certainly does not disavow decriminalization in light of the Italian experience,
this singular work in the empirical literature seems to suggest that decriminalization might not
hold the answers to the problems associated with drug prohibition.
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In their paper on Portuguese decriminalization, Hughes and Stevens find modest increases in drug use following decriminalization, which they conclude from a descriptive analysis do not differ greatly from drug use trends in Spain and Italy, and revenue-generating crimes associated with drug use are not thought to have increased as a result of decriminalization.
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Of the arguments presented by Miron and others in favor of reducing drug enforcement or moving towards legalization, a preponderance deal with the supply
side, and indeed seem to offer little theoretical basis for decriminalization except in being “less
bad” than stricter paradigms of drug prohibition. Hughes and Stevens find that despite
encouraging trends such as decreasing rates of drug use (except for cannabis) among Portuguese youth, decriminalization has still been accompanied by increased overall reported drug use and drug mortality.
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The theoretical and empirical literature remains undecided on the merit of decriminalization – that is, the liberalization of only the demand side of the illicit drug market – as an alternative drug control regime to full legalization or prohibition.

Ook decriminalization door enkel de vraagzijde uit de illegaliteit te halen is niet compleet zaligmakend, al is volgens deze studie niet duidelijk of het slechts over een tijdelijk negatief effect gaat.

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Time series plots show a definite increase in both homicide and drug mortality rates in
Portugal following decriminalization, both in absolute terms and relative to the average homicide and drug mortality rates of the other European Union countries included in the analysis – Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden.
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Portuguese homicide and drug mortality rates increase and vary more wildly relative to European trends in the period after decriminalization.
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While not implying a causal link between decriminalization and an increase in homicide
and drug mortality rates, the estimated coefficients both suggest a relationship between
decriminalization and greater negative externalities associated with the illicit drug trade in the
Portuguese case.
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As such, it is not possible to affirmatively conclude based on these results
that the observed increases in homicide and drug mortality rates in Portugal relative to the
control countries were outside the bounds of normal variation.
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A number of possibilities exist to explain this result (and to make a claim as
to which of these effects occurred in actuality is beyond the scope of this paper), the most selfexplanatory among them being that decriminalization really did exacerbate the negative
externalities associated with the illicit drug trade relative to non-decriminalization. A likely
mechanism for this effect is an increase in overall drug use, and therefore the size of the illicit
market, as a result of the reduction of user penalties. This is an explanation supported by the economic theory: users face a lower cost when choosing drug consumption, because they no
longer suffer the risk of criminal prosecution.
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Decriminalization, when viewed through this lens, is precisely the wrong sort of drug market liberalization; instead of ameliorating supply-side tension which leads to violent conflict resolution, decriminalization might simply increase drug consumption and the size of the illicit market.

It is possible that even a small positive demand shock to the
drug market might produce negative consequences.
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Even if decriminalization in Portugal caused the observed increases in homicide and drug
mortality rates, such effects may only represent an adjustment period between strict prohibition and a decriminalization regime. Portugal’s experiment is still young, and it is reasonable to believe that any sort of reorganization in the drug market might lead to increased use or violence.
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If this is the case, the results could represent only the short-term effects of the change of drug control regime. An increase in violent conflict resolution associated with a change in the nature of the illicit market, or difficulties of law enforcement agencies in adjusting to the change, could also account for a short-term increase in the homicide rate.
There is some evidence in the paper by Hughes and Stevens that the increases in negative
externalities associated with the illicit drug market after decriminalization are short-term effects.
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Drug use reported among 15-16-year-olds, according to Hughes and Stevens, increased in the
years before decriminalization and immediately afterwards, but then started to decline (Hughes and Stevens 2010). They further argue that the decline in reported use among 15-16-year-olds from 2003-2007 was more marked than elsewhere in Europe. If the drug education and treatment efforts that accompanied decriminalization account for this change, drug use may decline as fewer young people try drugs.
In terms of problematic drug use, Hughes and Stevens note that problematic drug use in Portugal fell since decriminalization.
They suggest that while overall drug use has increased, the problematic drug use which causes the most social harm has decreased.

Maar decriminalization heeft blijkbaar ook positieve effecten die Geert ontkende zelfs nadat hij zelf met deze studie op de proppen kwam.

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Another possible explanation for the results is changes in reporting practices following
decriminalization, and at least in the case of drug mortalities this seems likely. The magnitude of the coefficient for the effect of decriminalization on mortality is too high to be the result of increased use at approximately the level found by Hughes and Stevens, especially in light of the increased focus on addiction treatment that accompanied the decriminalization event.
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According to their paper, local agents explained the increase in reported drug mortalities as stemming from a huge increase in the number of toxicological autopsies performed – more than a two-fold increase from 2002 to 2008. A change in reporting practices could explain the implausibly large coefficient estimated for decriminalization’s effect on drug mortality, and excluding the data points from the mid 2000s puts reported drug mortality
rates in Portugal more in line with European trends.
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Policy makers in Portugal designed the decriminalization policy in response to increased problems associated with the illicit drug trade, so in this way the decriminalization event itself may be endogenous to the homicide or drug mortality rate. Another point made by MacCoun in relation to the Italian case is applicable here: drug mortality should be thought of as a lagged indicator for drug use, meaning that an increase in drug mortalities may say more about preexisting drug use trends than about the immediate effects of decriminalization.

Ze relativeren zelfs hun bevindingen zoals het kritische wetenschappers betaamt. Al hadden ze hun abstract beter dermate geschreven zodat onze man van de wetenschap deze studie niet verkeerdelijk zou hebben aangewend.

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Full legalization of drugs, advocated by many economists including otherwise politically
conservative members of the Chicago School, has a strong grounding in the economic theory.
Violence stemming from the illicit drug trade (excluding revenue-generating crime, which could either increase under legalization due to increased drug use rates or decrease due to
lower drug prices) can be traced directly to the extrajudicial resolution of business disputes, because when disputes over property rights cannot be resolved through legal means, economic agents must establish alternative and potentially violent means of resolving these conflicts.
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Decriminalization means a liberalization of only the demand side of the
illicit drug market. Looking to the classical theory, this should increase drug consumption by reducing the cost to users of consuming drugs.
More recent literature has questioned the relevance of deterrence to the illicit drug market, and has suggested that the elimination of user penalties could reduce violence associated with the drug trade by allowing users more easily to resolve unrelated disputes through legal means.
Nonetheless, decriminalization seems not to address the fundamental problem with drug prohibition most commonly cited by economists who
advocate the liberalization of drug policies – a black market which entails violent conflict
resolution and other negative externalities, such as a lack of regulation of product quality.
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These results, along with MacCoun’s look at drug mortality during Italian decriminalization (which he notes is far from conclusive), point towards the idea that decriminalization may not represent a good alternative to legalization or prohibition.
Despite the fact that so many economists favor decriminalization, the
economic theory suggests that liberalizing only the demand side of the illicit drug market would likely do little to mitigate the negative externalities of that market, and could even exacerbate them by increasing drug use without easing supply-side market tensions.
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For those who truly believe that prohibition is unviable as a
drug control regime, these results should suggest that legalization may be the only justifiable
alternative.
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While supported by the economic theory, the full legalization of drugs may not be politically viable.
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If the legalization of all drugs is politically unfeasible in the short term,
decriminalization could function as a stepping stone to better drug control policies in the future.
It is also important to remember that decriminalization affects individual people and not only
macroeconomic variables. Personal liberty, the dubious morality of incarcerating drug users, and potential harm to civil-police relations are all arguments for the decriminalization of drugs which do not base in economic expediency.
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Problems of potentially inconsistent data reporting and the difficulties of estimating standard errors in such a model mean that the results found in this paper may be inaccurate, or they may reflect the short-term transitional effects of a change in drug control regime rather than the long-term effects of decriminalization.
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There may be no easy solution to the problems associated with drug prohibition,
and decriminalization may be initially painful even if it has long-term merit. The idea that a systemic change in the market for illicit drugs might trigger transitional violence is supported in the economic theory.
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The findings by Hughes and Stevens regarding decreases in youth drug use and problematic drug use in Portugal after decriminalization should also be an encouraging sign.
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As prohibitionist policies continue to fail to eradicate the drug problem and violence
related to the illegal distribution of drugs grows, especially in drug-producing countries such as Mexico, the liberalization of drug policy is gaining traction in the public discourse both in the United States and abroad.
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Most of the theoretical literature suggests that drug prohibition, by forcing the market for drugs underground, is likely to lead to increased negative externalities associated with the drug market, most notably an increase in violence as economic
agents resolve business disputes outside of judicial means.
While the theory gives a clear basis
for moving away from a prohibition framework, it sheds little light on what effects
decriminalization, by liberalizing only the demand side of the illicit drug market, might have on
such externalities.
Jeffrey Miron and others explain some scenarios in which user sanctions
might result in disputes unrelated to the drug trade being resolved with violence, but it is unclear from the theory how the magnitude of these effects might compare to the increase in drug use one would expect from reduced user penalties.
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Decriminalization was found to be associated with
an approximately 25% increase in homicide rates and an increase of over 150% in drug mortality rates.
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They do suggest decriminalization was associated with at least a short-term increase in homicide and drug mortality rates in Portugal. In the Portuguese case, decriminalization does not seem to have remedied the problems of drug prohibition; on the contrary, it may have in fact led to an increase in the negative externalities associated with the illicit drug market.
The results of this analysis do not imply a causal connection between decriminalization
and increased homicide and drug mortality rates, generally or even for Portugal alone, but they should encourage economists to consider decriminalization more carefully. Economists who oppose drug prohibition may be inclined to favor decriminalization as simply a “less bad”
alternative, but there are both theoretical reasons and (limited) empirical evidence which suggest that liberalization of only the demand side of the drug market may cause more harm than good.
While the legalization of drugs is at present politically untenable (at least outside of the areas most adversely affected by the international drug trade, such as Latin America), it may be time economists started discussing it as a more theoretically justifiable alternative to prohibition than decriminalization.
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If subsequent research does show that decriminalization does not
address the problems of drug prohibition, economists and policy makers may have to come to
terms with making the uncomfortable decision between prohibition and the full legalization of
drugs.

Hoe Geert, onze man van de wetenschap, dacht dat deze studie zijn grote gelijk zou moeten bewijzen is op zijn minst nogal raar en een indicatie dat hij inderdaad niet verder heeft gelezen dan het abstract.