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Discuss the Economics on the War on Drugs

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Discuss the Economics on the War on Drugs
Microeconomic policy and princliples.

Discuss the Economics of the war on drugs:
The global war on drugs has been a downhill battle with no apparent success, which has also hailed devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Since the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, set up in 1961, and ex U.S. president Nixon’s declaration of war on drugs in 1971, billions of dollars and 10,000’s of lives have been lost in this failing attempt to control the flow of these substances; in which the attempt to do so has also created a destabilising effect on the world economy. The cost of the war on drugs has been spread over a wide variety of avenues, including criminalization, rehabilitation and counter measures aimed at the producers, trafficker’s and consumers of illegal drugs, all of which have not sufficed effectively to reduce the demand for supply and consumption. Enforcers in this ever-present battle face a huge complexity in how to tackle their opponents, who are constantly updating and adapting their methods of trafficking and supplying the illegal substances. In this essay I will discuss the arguments for and against the war on drugs, the impacts on society and the world economy after four decades of this issue. In doing so, I will critically examine the problem using the three economic principles used to assess the effects of the war on drugs, which are scarcity, gains from trades and supply and demand. This analysis is intended to raise such questions as “do governments policies create economic market of its own? Or, do the same economic principles explain government behaviour? Do any of these economic principles explain how bad polices continue with very little or empirical evidence of success?
The war on drugs is arguably a tough case to take sides on. Both sides for and against tackling the matter both have heavy implications on society whether it be economically or socially. In this paragraph I will



Bibliography: Commission report: World Drugs Problem, ten years on. Memo/09/103. Brussels, 10 March 2009: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/103&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en Black Money: The Business of Money Laundering. David Smith, 8 June 2011. http://www.economywatch.com/economy-business-and-finance-news/black-money-the-business-of-money-laundering.08-06.html 22/01/10 Fraud losses cost the UK £30 billion a year. 22 January 2010. http://www.moneylaunderingcompliance.com/index.php/general-information/22-01-10-fraud-losses-cost-the-uk-30bn-a-year http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8640399.stm http://web.archive.org/web/20060720100713/http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/world_drug_report_2005.html http://www.incb.org/pdf/e/ar/2002/incb_report_2002_1.pdf

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