In this second part of the book I want to begin by looking at the links between drug use and crime. Not all drug users are criminal (except that the possession of an illegal substance is itself a crime), but some are, and the links between use and crime have dominated much of the debate. Almost all proposals boil down to one, probably two questions – how to reduce crime and how to reduce organised crime. Legalisers say that prohibition produces and promotes crime. They offer their solutions, some of which claim massive and immediate results, including a decline in the prison population; others are content to suggest that things might not turn out to be quite so dramatic. Prohibitionists accept crime as inevitable, but add that it prevents more than it creates; legalisers say they can reduce it.

Below I have listed nine major allegations that critics say occur as a result of prohibition. These are not in any order of priority, nor are claims made that this is an exhaustive list, or that it does other than set out the main contours of the debate. I want to see how they stand up to an examination.

(1) The drug trade is responsible for producing a massive increase in crime, which has become necessary to support the user’s habit.

Nearly all criticisms of prohibition are predicated on the assumption of direct links between drug taking and crime. Nadelmann (1991, p 30), who appears to be speaking for others, sees a number of connections between drugs and crime, one of which is due to the relatively high price of illicit drugs. So, if drugs were significantly cheaper, which he asserts would be so were they to be legalised, the number of crimes committed by drug users to pay for their habit would accordingly decline. The extent of such a reduction is not given; but of course to be convincing Nadelmann would need to show this, or better still, show how each reduction in price produces a corresponding reduction in criminality. This he does not do, saying that it is difficult to estimate the consequences of making drugs legal as legalisation is likely to spark high levels of curiosity, stimulated by the media. He calls legalisation a loose cannon as far as predicting the direction of drug use is concerned (Nadelmann, 1991).