ITALY - Professor of Criminology in the Department of Jurisprudence at the University of Trento, he was visiting professor at the universities of Oxford and Berkeley, and recently at Yale Law School and the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge.

ABSTRACT: The legalization of drugs would have certain effects on crime:

1) the breaking up of many criminal organizations that dealt mainly with drug traffic;

2) the immediate reconversion of large criminal organizations such as the Italian Mafia to other markets both legal and illegal;

3) alternative criminal activities;

4) a decrease in crime generated revenues for drug users;

5) a decrease in police, political and judicial corruption;

6) a global decrease in crime and social damages.

But only legalization on the international level could bring about such positive results.

("THE COST OF PROHIBITION ON DRUGS", Papers of the International

Anti-prohibitionism Forum, Brussels 28th september - 1st october 1988; Ed. Radical Party)

It is by now a proven fact that a large part of criminal behaviour is - in various ways and at various levels - influenced by the "drug problem". The problem remains, and we can do no more at present than speculate as to whether the "cost" (crime) will be reduced or increased by changing the present prohibitionist policy.

My intention here is to attempt to analyze the effects that prohibition has today on crime, and speculate as to what changes in the criminal structures might occur as a result of antiprohibitionist legislation.

There are many possible approaches to the problem; however, mine will be through the analysis of the interrelationships between the various segments making up the structure of the criminal world and their connections with the "drug problem". Those inter- relationships can be briefly described as consisting of: drug users who commit public offenses; public offenders who use drugs; users and/or dealers at the various levels who commit drug-related offenses; and those criminals presently "active" in the drug trade, who would become involved in other types of crime should that occupation no longer be possible for them.

DRUGS AND CRIME

Reliable data, recently obtained from a variety of sources - including further progress made in testing methods (urine tests) - on the connections between drugs and public offenses, have demonstrated just how many and exactly which types of criminals are drug users (Graham, 1987). Thus it was discovered that, in 1984, approximately 50% of those arrested, at the time of their arrest, were users of one or more types of drug. That percentage has since increased. The results of research conducted in Washington, D.C., demonstrated that, in September of 1985, three out of four persons arrested were proven to be on drugs - as compared to 56% in March of 1984. In 1986, out of a sample group of 400 persons arrested in New York City, 80% resulted positive when tested for cocaine, as opposed to 42% in 1984 - a doubling in only two years, affecting all age groups (but in particular the young between the ages of 16 and 20, where the increase was from 6% in 1984 to 72% in 1985).

These statistics were obtained from studies made in the United States, but they could easily be applied - at least roughly - to other countries, if allowances are made for the unknown numbers as regards crime in those countries.

That data, however, does not immediately make clear whether it is the drug users who commit more public offenses, or the public offenders who consume more drugs. And it is anyone's guess as to whether that doubling in the United States (where the policy of prohibition in force directly limits the drug offer and demand) is due to an increase (mostly in the poorer sectors of the population) of those users who commit public offenses in order to make a living, or public offenders who take drugs.

In any case, that the drug problem is increasingly connected to the problem of public offenses is amply demonstrated, and is further proof of the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the policy of repression.

It would be pointless to insist on the effects of prohibition on drug-related crime. That crime exists insofar as that policy exists. And of the many certain effects, two stand out in particular:

l) the strong social condemnation of the drug addict/criminal by public opinion (which is not the case as regards the alcoholic, and which works against attempts at rehabilitating the former);

2) an accentuation in the reversal of the dealer/user role, as part of the process, preceding or attendant to the committing of public offenses to obtain the money necessary to support the drug habit.

These are important, if marginal, aspects of the central interrogative as to the different effects on crime in general resulting, respectively, from the alternatives of prohibition and the legalization of drugs. My answer to that question must by necessity be a hypothetical one, and thus preliminary.

The projection of future effects presupposes the existence of clear-cut alternatives, which are many within the intentionally simplified and schematic choice of "prohibition and legalization". Between those two extremes, many different types of prohibition and various methods of legalization exist, as well as various possible combinations of the two. All of this is conditioned by the various types of drugs which are today considered illegal.

As it would be impossible to list all those alternatives, I shall simply give an outline of the essential aspects of the question, which could be understood as a modification of the market itself (the offer and the demand), the drugs involved (heroin and cocaine), and the transformation of the criminal market in the wider sense.

0,000.)

The same could be said for tabagism, the effects of traffic

TRANSFORMING THE DRUG MARKET

As regards this transformation, we should first make a distinction between influencing the demand and influencing the offer. It would be possible to hypothesize an immediate - if temporary - increase in the demand if the legalization of drugs resulted in the availability of drugs at legal (but controlled) market prices; that is, prices much lower than those for illegal drugs. However, in that case, the demand would probably remain stable if the government were to add a tax to those "legal" prices in order to prevent that increase - above all as regard the occasional user. Thus, there would be benefits in either case; "simple" legalization would result in a considerable decrease in crimes committed for profit, while the number of occasional and habitual users would increase. A "taxed" liberalization would result in the number of users remaining practically unchanged (in relation to the illegal market), and the same would be true for the number of drug-related crimes. In the second case, the State would, as

a result, receive an income which, together with the savings to the penal law system resulting from the absence of offenses to be controlled, could be used to finance direct measures for the treatment of habitual drug users and a campaign to discourage the demand - which would also be considerably effective and efficient in reducing the overall number of drug users. The present situation is one in which enormous sums of money are illegally taken from the users and then re-invested in the criminal drug market and other illegal activities, causing damage and corruption to State institutions.

This problem brings us to the second consideration; the transformation of the offer. The traditional assumption that if prohibition causes organized crime to prosper and grow, then the legalization of drugs would eliminate it, is simplistic and does not take into account the many variables involved, among which are the different market structures for the different types of drugs (for example, the heroin market is structured differently than the cocaine market, and so on), the different organizational structures existing in the various sectors of organized crime and the territories in which they operate.

At present, organized crime, traditionally involved in international heroin trading, would appear to be progressively reducing that involvement, which is in line with the present preference of that element for controlling profitable business activities within the "legal" markets. The space left available would be taken up by smaller organizations, often limited to their operational territory. In short, it would seem that the heroin super-markets are decreasing in number in favour of a growth in intermediate retail operations. This tendency illustrates the decline of the monopolistic structure which in the past characterized the illegal markets controlled by organized crime. In its place, a more local and competitive structure has emerged. The many reasons for this transformation could be summed up as follows: criminal organizations are changing their infrastructures in order to reduce to a minimum the costs of punitive actions (which have considerably increased as a result of repressive policies) and in

order to maximize their profits.

On the cocaine market, the situation is different. The large criminal organizations never really entered that market - or did so marginally. The market is in the hands of the more important dealers with small criminal organizations as intermediaries, handling retail sales.

What would happen in a similar situation should drug prices, following legalization, fall, to the extent that the enormous profits resulting from its illegal status were eliminated?

That question is a complex one, and would require a more detailed answer than it is be possible to give here. Consequently, with the approximations and limitations imposed by the lack of available information for projecting future events, we can only offer the following speculation:

- Traditional criminal organizations such as the Cosa Nostra and the Italian Mafia would within a short time experience a marginal decrease in their overall profits and would rapidly transfer their capital invested in the heroin market to other legal or illegal markets;

- The new criminal organizations making their appearance on the heroin market, either as a result of the succession of ethnic groups, or succession at the local level, would be destroyed by the legalization of that drug. The situation would be the same for the cocaine market, unless they transferred to other markets - which is unlikely as the competition from other, pre-existent criminal organizations would be heavy. A small part of the illegal market would remain, if legalization were accompanied by a direct tax intended to keep the price to the consumer high. The resulting situation would be similar to the contraband cigarette market; that is, a certain quantity of contraband drug would be available at lower than legal prices. This would keep prices high enough to discourage the demand and low enough to discourage the creation of a market to compete with the legal one.

TRANSFORMATION OF THE CRIMINAL MARKETS

The most recent data - upon wich it would be worth reflecting - is concerned with changes in the organization of criminal activity caused by the legalization of drugs. Here, as well, I submit a working hypothesis to the discussion.

Based on the above observations on the structural transformation of the drug market, we could say that it is the persistence of the large criminal organizations and the disappearance of the smaller ones dedicated exclusively to drugs which would substantially change the face of organized crime. This is because it would modify the roles in the connections between organized crime, economic crime, public offenses, and - in part - political crime, with the obvious repercussions on the type of violence besetting society. Here, two strong tendencies stand out: l) the disappearance of some criminal activities; and 2) the development of others, the characteristics of which are still too indistinct to permit an estimate of their proportions. A preliminary attempt to analyze the effects of this could lead to the following speculations - once more, of necessity incomplete and provisional:

- A reduction of that sector of economic crime related to the "laundering of dirty money";

- A change in public offenders, due to the passing on to other types of crime (theft, robberies, etc.) of those criminals previously involved in drug traffic, and an increase in violence caused by conflict between competitive criminal bands and the absence of control on the part of organized crime;

- A decrease in the corruption by organized crime of members of political, legal and police institutions for the facilitating of its illegal drug activities.

CONCLUSIONS

The above provide examples of what transformations could result in the different forms of crime, following a liberalization of the drug offer.

In an overall evaluation, the assumption could be made that crime and the social damage resulting from it would decrease at all levels with the passage from prohibition to the legalization of drugs. The proportions of that decrease would be even greater if steps taken to legalize drugs were accompanied by massive investment of the savings resulting in the rehabilitation of drug addicts and in campaigns to discourage the drug demand, thus removing incentives to criminal activities.

The degree of social concern, which will be instrumental in the choice between a favorable and an unfavourable verdict on legalization, should theoretically decrease, if only due to the heightened awareness of the criminal behaviour threatening society. In fact, besides the probable decrease in public offenses, there would also be a decrease in the type of crime discouraged by more effective anti-crime action made possible by the investment in those actions of part of the money previously taken by drug-related crimes (which would no longer have any reason to exist).

These are just a few examples of the possible results of the legalization of drugs. My intention here was not to bring into discussion the type of that legalization, or the provisions for control or negative incentives which might accompany it. Those are crucial problems, the solution of which must be entrusted to the international community. A national approach to them would immediately reverse - also in the spheres of organized crime - the positive results outlined here.