Crimes Fueled by Illegal Drugs

Advocates for criminal justice reform or drug legalization discuss drug use as if it operates solely in a vacuum – as if the drug users impact no one else but themselves.  Setting aside the impact on children, what about the impact outside of the drug users’ household itself? 

Let’s just ask some simple questions? Do drug users fund their expensive addiction by taking a second job? Are copper thefts and car burglaries motivated by the thief’s need to pay college tuition? We know that drug users harm society – and at an alarming rates.

The Midwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) is composed of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Rock Island Illinois.  In March of 2020, Midwest HIDTA completed a report entitled An Examination of the Relationship Between Drugs and Crime in the Midwest.  The endeavor used “information gathered from modern academic research, drug market trends, substance abuse statistics, law enforcement agencies, and Midwest HIDTA law enforcement initiatives.”  The report found “Nearly two-thirds of the region’s property and violent crime is attributable to drugs use and drug trafficking.” 

Milton Friedman was an ardent libertarian – one who (innocently, but ignorantly) advocated for legalizing narcotics.  However, Friedman once also said, “[T]here’s always a case for the government, to some extent, when what two people do affects a third party.” As the HIDTA report shows, drug use passes Freidman’s most basic test for the a governmental law.  As a brilliant economist and professor, he simply had no understanding of the world of the drug user - but law enforcement does (Hence, public safety’s vehement opposition to criminal justice reform).