Quantity Illusions and Paradoxes of Drug Interdiction: Federal Intervention into Vice Policy

Abstract

The control of crime has been a predominantly local responsibility through the history of the Republic. Similarly, the regulation of morality generally has been viewed as a local responsibility, with each community enjoying the freedom to choose its own moral legislation. The last decade, however, has witnessed the rapid growth of a federal police effort aimed primarily at enforcing drug regulations. Drug enforcement has become a major federal responsibility, though drug policy is treated as the regulation of vice markets. This federal intervention is justified on the basis of paternalistic concerns about the effects of the behavior on both the user and society generally. For example, the federal drug enforcement effort currently involves expenditures of approximately $2 billion' and provides a significant presence in cities throughout the nation. Although state and local authorities continue to make a majority of the arrests for violation of drug laws,2 prisoners who were arrested by federal agencies account for a substantial minority of the total number of years spent in incarceration for drug violations.3 Moreover,