Report: Drug legalization could save UK $20 billion annually
Posted April 7, 2009
In a new report titled A Comparison of the Cost-effectiveness of the Prohibition and Regulation of Drugs, the non-profit Transform Drug Policy Foundation finds that legalizing such drugs as marijuana could save England as much as £14 billion (roughly $20 billion USD) annually.
The analysis of current costs is that prohibition of drugs is the root cause of almost all drug-related acquisitive crime, and that this crime constitutes the majority of drug-related harms and costs to society.
The comprehensive report looks at four scenarios in which current black market drugs are legalized, regulated and taxed, and the costs and benefits of each case. Even in the worst case scenario, in which drug usage increases an improbable 100%, the plan would still have a net benefit of over £4 billion.
The conclusion is that regulating the drugs market is a dramatically more cost-effective policy than prohibition and that moving from prohibition to regulated drugs markets in England and Wales would provide a net saving to taxpayers, victims of crime, communities, the criminal justice system and drug users of somewhere within the range of, for the four scenarios, £13.9bn, £10.8bn, £7.7bn, £4.6bn.
The full report:
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