Economists Slam the War on Drugs in a New London School of Economics Report
The ‘singular approach’ to fighting drug abuse isn’t working—and it’s time for a change, says a new report produced by the London School of Economics. What they suggest, in five steps.
In an 81-page report released Monday evening, the best and brightest minds in the economic drug policy world send the United Nations a loaded message about the drug war: Enough.
The individual analyses of the economists and drug policy experts, signed by five Nobel Prize winners in economics, expose the collateral damage of the drug war and offer suggestions on how the policies can—and should—change.
“Academics and economists have great insight into this issue—and for so long, they’ve been ignored,” said John Collins, the International Drug Policy Project Coordinator at the London School of Economics, which produced the report. “Evidenced-based data about the war on drugs has been lacking for too long. It’s time that something changes.”
Collins noted that the report, titled “Ending the Drug Wars,” is nowhere near a simple fix. “There is no single way to solve this issue,” he said. “It’s an extraordinarily complex issue. We’ve tried to fix it with a singular approach—the drug war—and that hasn’t worked.”
More: Economists Slam the War on Drugs in a New London School of Economics Report