Talk:Iron law of prohibition

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Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:45, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Iron Law of ProhibitionIron law of prohibition

Perplexed as to why the concepts developed by this guy are upcased, against sibling article titles such as Von Thünen rent and Schumpeterian rent, and many more, which are consistent with WP:CAPS ("Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization") and its specification that laws are usually downcased; and WP:TITLE, this is a generic, common term, not a propriety or commercial term, so the article title should be downcased. Lowercase will match the formatting of related article titles. Tony (talk) 08:11, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Unsourced content removed pending citations.[edit]

It is based on the premise that when drugs or alcohol are prohibited, they will be produced only in black markets in their most concentrated and powerful forms. If all alcohol beverages are prohibited, a bootlegger will be more profitable if he smuggles highly potent distilled liquors than if he smuggles the same volume of small beer. In addition, the black-market goods are more likely to be adulterated with unknown or dangerous substances. The government cannot regulate and inspect the production process, and harmed consumers have no recourse in law. Therefore the "iron law" says that the more you try to enforce prohibition (bigger budgets, larger penalties, etc.) the more potent and dangerous prohibited drugs become.

The law is based on the research of Mark Thornton, an economist associated with the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He first showed that the potency of marijuana increased in response to higher enforcement budgets. He later expanded this research in his dissertation to include other illegal drugs and alcohol during Prohibition in the United States (1920-1933). The basic approach is based on the Alchian and Allen Theorem. They argue that if you add any fixed cost (e.g. transportation fee) to the price of two varieties of the same product (e.g. high quality red apple and a low quality red apple) the more expensive variety will get exported more often. When applied to rum-running, drug smuggling, and blockade running the more potent products become the sole focus of the suppliers.

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