Act I: Inelastic Pot?

A friend at work has a masters' degree in economics -- and generally votes left. This is a phenomenon which utterly fascinates me. I'd say it's a bit like being an Amish electronics engineer, but there's really no parallel.

To try to understand his thinking, I hit him up with a sample question about minimum wage policy: Why have one if it most harms poor minorities?

These questions of mine are more like a "tracer bullet". Although I'd love an interesting answer, the point is more to discover how they approach the subject. Are they basing their views mostly on evidence and reason, or on something else, like emotion? In this case, the response was amicable but vague: Perhaps there were circumstances where the benefit justified the policy. I asked which circumstances justified increasing unemployment among poor minorities. He repeated his vague assertion. I offered evidence. He seemed uninterested. Initial question answered.

Our talk wandered off into the question of drug legalization. (On his initiative, not mine.) He mentioned his belief that drug consumption was inelastic (meaning demand for it doesn't vary with price and availability), and thus should be legalized. Nothing in my experience agrees with such assertions. An informal survey of co-workers, for example, suggests about that about 10-20% of the them readily admit that if pot were legal, they'd use it semi-regularly. That's hardly inelastic.

Perhaps my friend means that current drug users aren't sensitive to price fluctuations in their demand. Of course in the present situation, that makes sense: If you're willing to risk getting fired and going to jail for your favorite substance, you're probably not going to be dissuaded by a 25% increase in price! But that doesn't mean there isn't a huge segment of the population whose who would change their habits if legal recreational drugs became available.

I suggested this possibility to him. He repeated his assertion. Ah well.

Act II: The Most Pressing Question for Obama!

Cadillac Tight (strange name, that) notes that the number one question being asked on Obama's ironically-named "Open for Questions" transition team site is, basically: "Dude, I want my pot!" (CT also admits that he, himself, would smoke the stuff regularly if it were legal. Another case in point.)

Now, as I’ve admitted here on several occasions, I partook of the weed myself in my youth, and were it not for the fact that it’s illegal, I’d probably still prefer it to a beer. So, no hypocritical ranting or raving from me about liberals and their dope, OK? Legalize it, for all I care, and be done with it.

In terms of priorities, though, you have to admit this is pretty funny, right? While these Obama partisans were busy as little bees trying to keep embarrassing questions from appearing on The One’s “open” tool, all of the election season rhetoric about torture, the “illegal” war in Iraq, “Global warming”, and “reclaiming America’s reputation abroad” didn’t find it’s way to the top of the question pool.

And if you’re telling yourself “Well, that was just one question, Joe, don’t laugh too hard”, consider this from The Hill: "More than a dozen of the top 50 vote-getting questions pertained to amending America’s drug policies...."

So wonderful to see everyone getting involved politically, isn't it?

Act III: Legalizing Vice

Over dinner, a friend recently expressed that he'd had trouble, as a conservative, with the question as to whether to raise betting limits in casinos. I don't see the problem myself: there will be limits either way, so why not set them somewhat low and do less harm? I suspect for him the conflict was more a matter of having libertarian leanings and wanting to minimize the state's involvement in everything.

Regular readers know that I think of libertarianism as a kind of plague on conservative thinking. Just as the liberal tends to support "obvious" economic propositions which actually do the opposite of what they think, so also the libertarians support "obvious" social policies which similarly do the exact opposite of what libertarians would like.

For example: What happens when you legalize "vice"?

Consider gambling. Once upon a time gambling was a crime, and tended to be run by the mob. By legalizing gambling (which we call "gaming" now, as if people getting together to play Parcheesi or checkers) we instantly eliminated a lot of crime. But did we increase or decrease harm overall? Now its completely legal to destroy someone economically. In fact, states even spend lots of money promoting the practice to its poorest citizens. But are there now more or fewer lives destroyed by "gaming"?

I'd be hard-pressed to argue "fewer."

But, more to the point, what has this newly-created "gaming industry" done, politically and culturally? I notice that now when I turn on ESPN, high-stakes gambling is being treated as a "sport", like golf -- a form of pervasive product placement advertising. Of course! If you were the CEO of a gaming company, your natural economic inclination will be to promote as much gaming as possible. Speaking only in economic terms, if you could, you'd like to have a casino (or several) in every town. On every street corner really, if you could.

And where does the "gaming industry" give its political donations? To those who favor smaller goverment? Or to big-government Democrats like Harry Reid (D-NV)? (Answer here.)

Consider another vice: Abortion. Now that abortion is legalized, it's an "industry" -- abortion providers want to maximize the need for their services, and have political action funds, like everyone else, to ensure public policy is structured in a way that helps them make the most money. (Please think about that for a moment, dear reader.)

So, once again, politically, to whom does the abortion give its money? It funds those who want bigger, more intrusive government. And their opponents, in contrast, fund those who happen to prefer a more limited role for government.

And now let's consider the "adult entertainment" industry. Do they tend to support Republicans or Democrats? (Do we even have to ask?)

So if we legalize drugs, what will happen? First, as per my survey above, I expect drug use will increase. Second, a "recreational drug industry" will be created, which will have a strong financial incentive to further promote and increase drug use -- expanding use of existing products, and creating new product lines for consumption. (If you think the current pharmaceutical marketing is ridiculous, just wait.)

In the current political climate this will mean keeping its guardians well-bribed. And who do you think newly-formed recreational drug industry will support, the right or the left? The party of Woody Harrelson, or the party of Tom Selleck? And what kind of voting patterns do you think the newly-increased corps of drug users will manifest? Voting increasingly to be trusted for more responsibility? Or voting for those who argue that it's the government's job to solve all their problem? Heh, who are we kidding. The recreational drug use industry will be another mechanism for promoting harmful behavior, converting that behavior into a tsunami of cash, a fraction of which will be used to support those who favor a more powerful state.

The mechanism here is very simple. A "vice" is anything which may be relatively harmless or even beneficial in small doses (for example, an occasional glass of wine, or a friendly poker game among buddies) but which can lead to serious harm via a "slippery slope" with more frequent or less restricted use.

Any person who is both moral and sensible understands that there are such limits. (I'd would never want to see the police bust a group of friends for playing a game of poker. BUT that doesn't mean I would want to see potentially infinite betting limits at Casinos.) Yet the financial incentive with vices is to eliminate all sensible limits. That means that political money tends to go to those who either don't know about the harm done, or don't care.

Unsurprisingly, these tend to be same leaders who want more power.

So to recap, products which become rapidly more harmful, but yet more lucrative with increased use, when legalized, become vice industries. The industries then tend to put political money toward the kind of politicians who will "look the other way" concerning sensible limits. They don't tend to go to the types of leaders whose constituents are working to minimize to voluntarily minimize the impact of that particular vice.