NCJ Number
167953
Journal
Independent Review Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Dated: (Fall 1996) Pages: 163-189
Date Published
1996
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This article proposes to show how bureaucratic self-interest and predatory public finance in the form of explicit or implicit sin taxes have been and continue to be the primary determinants of public policy in the area of illicit drug control.
Abstract
The Harrison Act of 1914, often cited as the law that made consumption of narcotics illegal, in reality established very modest "sin taxes" on the sale of narcotics such as opiates. What became illegal as a result of the Act was the possession or sale of untaxed narcotics. Policy against marijuana began in a similar fashion with passage of the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937. Sin taxes such as these inevitably lead to crime, however, as individuals attempt to avoid the tax through black markets, smuggling, and the violent forms of competition and contract enforcement that accompany such activities. An excise tax may reduce the level of the sin being taxed, but it simultaneously induces new kinds of sin that are often much more costly for society. However, rather than recognize the source of the crime and eliminate the sin taxes, full-blown criminalization of possession or sale of narcotics and marijuana evolved as bureaucrats who were given the authority to police these markets and collect the taxes propagated the belief that it was the sin of drug consumption that produced the crime, rather than the incentives to avoid the taxes imposed on the sin. Notes, references