From our op-ed in Friday’s Financial Times: “There simply are not many feasible drug-control activities in Afghanistan that do more good than harm. This is a case where less really is more: since the natural tendency of counterdrug efforts is to help our enemies, we should pursue those efforts as little as possible. As a first step in breaking the Taliban’s momentum, we might stop filling its coffers.”
Jon Caulkins, Jonathan Kulick, and I have an op-ed in Friday’s Financial Times. It’s behind a registration wall (though not a paywall), but here’s the nut graf:
There simply are not many feasible drug-control activities in Afghanistan that do more good than harm. This is a case where less really is more: since the natural tendency of counterdrug efforts is to help our enemies, we should pursue those efforts as little as possible. As a first step in breaking the Taliban’s momentum, we might stop filling its coffers.
And here’s the full report.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
It was an interesting presentation…
… one more example of the heavy hand which often has
unintended consequences.