Just Finished Reading: Narconomics – How to Run a Drug Cartel by Tom Wainwright (FP: 2016) [286pp] 

Humans have been taking drugs, growing drugs and selling drugs probably for as long as there have been people. It is almost one of our defining features [Side note: Personally, I find it pretty amazing that plants exist that naturally produce – processed or not – a variety of narcotics that can get us ‘high’]. On the other side of this equation, though I guess much later in human cultural evolution, there have long been those who want to stop people taking these drugs for a variety of reasons. As we know – they have almost universally failed in this endeavour. The ‘why’ of this failure is the topic of this intriguing and often troubling book. 

What governments (and other authorities) regularly attempt to do is to reduce the supply of drugs to stifle their consumption. For many (often obvious) reasons this is doomed to fail from the outset. For one thing, many of the drugs and both easy and cheap to grow so ploughing up fields or spraying them with herbicides is an expensive way to do very little. Likewise processing drugs is an industrial process on an industrial scale so the interception of the odd (even large) shipment makes little overall difference to the ‘price on the street’ (a proxy metric for how well the anti-drugs authorities are performing). What makes this metric worse is that drug users (who are often physically addicted to the product) are more than willing to pay the higher price for their ‘fix’ and, if that wasn’t enough, by doing so INCREASE the profits of drug dealers. This is hardly a sustainable policy. [Side note: I’ve never understood the fact that drug seizures are destroyed – usually on camera – rather than sold to drug companies for processing into legal drugs. If so, this could almost self-finance the war of drugs] The author, who clearly knows his stuff and has on more than one occasion walked the walk into the proverbial lion's den, suggests a far more effective and cheaper alternative. The idea is to reduce demand and reduce illegal revenue. You reduce demand, especially for the harder drugs, by rehabilitation programmes and other techniques and you reduce revenue by legalising at least SOME of the lighter drugs like cannabis thus cutting the user base from under the dealers. 

The author makes a very valid case for using the unique economics of the drug industry against it rather than staying the course of a decades long failed moral crusade. Seeing the issue as a cold economic one, rather than simply seeing drug users as moral degenerates, would be more effective and longer lasting – essentially because it makes actual sense – than what we (collectively) are doing today. It does seem that at least some regions or countries are listening to this advice with the slow decriminalisation of cannabis use across the world. Even if still illegal here (as far as I know) the police tend to turn a blind eye to its use unless the user steps over the line. Making it legal and standardising the quality/safety of the produce plus taxing it, seems the much more logical solution. It’s coming, and when it does people will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about. This is a fascinating look into a global mega-industry that few of us have any experience with and an even more interesting look at the economics of criminal activity. Highly recommended and one of the stand out reads of the year. 

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