Drug Decriminalization Policy Pays Off | Glenn Greenwald | Cato Institute: Commentary

Drug Decriminalization Policy Pays Off | Glenn Greenwald | Cato Institute: Commentary: "By any metric, Portugal's drug-decriminalization scheme has been a resounding success. Drug usage in many categories has decreased in absolute terms, including for key demographic groups, like 15-to-19-year-olds. Where usage rates have increased, the increases have been modest — far less than in most other European Union nations, which continue to use a criminalization approach.

Portugal, whose drug problems were among the worst in Europe, now has the lowest usage rate for marijuana and one of the lowest for cocaine. Drug-related pathologies, including HIV transmission, hepatitis transmission and drug-related deaths, have declined significantly.

Beyond the data, Portugal's success with decriminalization is illustrated by the absence of political agitation for a return to criminalization. As one might expect for a socially conservative and predominantly Roman Catholic country, the decriminalization proposal sparked intense controversy a decade ago."

"First, when a government threatens to turn drug users into criminals, a wall of fear divides officials and the citizenry and, thus, prevents effective treatment and education campaigns. Portugal's top drug official has said the stigma created by criminalizing drug use and the resulting fear of government were the biggest barriers to effective education and treatment programs in the 1990s.

Second, treating drug addiction as a health issue, not a criminal offense, means the right solutions can be found. Counseling is far more effective than prison in turning addicts into nonusers.

Third, when a government no longer spends inordinate amounts of money on arresting, prosecuting and imprisoning drug users, that money can instead be used on highly effective treatment programs, as well as services, like methadone clinics, to limit drug-related harms."

Are the Austrians Too Harsh? - John P. Cochran - Mises Daily

Are the Austrians Too Harsh? - John P. Cochran - Mises Daily: "The Journal, then, granting NBER's chronology, contrasts the current recession and 'recovery' with the almost equally long (16 months) and severe (unemployment peaked above 11 percent) recession of July 1981–November 1982 and subsequent recovery. Their conclusion is that the different policy circumstances significantly explain the drastically different recovery paths: following the trough in late 1982, the economy rapidly surpassed the prerecession levels of output. But currently, nearly 15 months past the trough, our economy is still significantly below prerecession levels."

Happy Birthday, Bank Bailout! | Mark A. Calabria | Cato Institute: Commentary

Happy Birthday, Bank Bailout! | Mark A. Calabria | Cato Institute: Commentary: "An admittedly unscientific but useful first approximation of any government program is to ask, did such program change an underlying trend? One of the rationales offered for TARP was that it would 're-start' our credit markets. If TARP did help the credit markets, then its impact should show up in the amount of credit outstanding.

However, consumer credit peaked several months before the creation of TARP and seemingly continued a relatively smooth trend downward. Would that trend have been worse without TARP? Maybe. But since it appears that the trend did not change much at all, I believe the burden is on the program's proponents to prove it did.

Another objective of TARP was to 'restore confidence.' The idea was that if the American public and the financial markets saw that the government would do and spend whatever was necessary, calm would return. Interestingly enough, the first consumer confidence reading after TARP passed was lower than the measure taken just before its signing. While consumer confidence did start to improve in the beginning of 2009, one would have expected TARP's impact on confidence to have been felt sooner rather than later.

The statutory language of TARP repeated talk about protecting homeownership, home values, and jobs. One need not reproduce charts for these variables. We all know how weak they have been. This of course should not really be a surprise. TARP did nothing to change the fundamentals of supply and demand in the housing market, or in the labor market."

"despite TARP's goal of cleaning the banking system of bank assets, there are more bad assets than ever. While TARP, of course, did not cause those bad assets, it was supposed to reduce them.

The real costs of TARP are likely not going to be felt for years, until the next financial crisis. In rescuing the financial system, TARP has created the expectation that in a moment of crisis, the government will throw money at the problem, reducing the incentive of market participants to reduce their own risk exposures."

Shattered Dreams: Homeowner Protection - FoxNews.com

Shattered Dreams: Homeowner Protection - FoxNews.com: "Judge Lippman developed a new procedure requiring attorneys to sign a form confirming that they have personally reviewed the paperwork, including a loan file where a client, the lender, is claiming a homeowner is behind on their payments and in default. Without this document included in a court file, a foreclosure action can no longer be filed in New York."