Tuesday, November 29, 2011

How Cheap Cocaine Makes us Safer

Llewellyn Hinkes-Jones has a new theory about why crime rates have fallen in America: cocaine is now so cheap that dealers find it no longer worth the time to fight for turf. The street price of cocaine in US cities fell from than 70 percent from 1984 to 1995 (it has fallen more since), and competition from meth, oxycontin, and other drugs led to falling demand. Business at some urban drug markets has gotten so slow that Post reporters found most of the street dealers they talked to made less than one sale a day, hardly worth risking death over.

I'm not convinced, but it's an interesting angle.

No comments: