ABSTRACT: Peter Reuter, "Senior Economist" at the Rand Corporation, Washington, one of the most important organisations for the analyses of social phenomena, explains in an interview with the Italian daily, "Il Manifesto" how the repression of drugs does not reduce their consumption but increases the profits they make.

("Single issue" booklet for the XXXV Congress of The Radical Party - Budapest 22-26 april 1989)

In the fiscal year of 1988, the federal budget in this sector was estimated at 4 billion dollars, of which 75% was earmarked for repression. The following year, the total budget was increased by another 2.6 billion dollars, almost all destined to repression. To this figure, must be added the sums granted at local and state levels, which in 1986 amounted to 4.4 billion dollars. Let us add another couple of billion dollars for the running expenses of justice and the prison system, and about 800 million dollars for prevention and treatment. In all, 12 or 13 billion dollars of which only a tiny proportion is destined to be used for prevention and aid to drug addicts. Most of it is allocated to the war against drug dealers. The results have not been encouraging. From 1981, the year in which greater commitment developed, the quantity of cocaine confiscated at frontiers or at sea, increased impressively, from less than a ton to over 40 tons in 1987, and the number of craft confiscated has increased by 25%. N

evertheless, the retail price of cocaine has diminished rapidly, from 600 dollars to 250 dollars a gram. In short, increased confiscation of cocaine does not result in a reduction of the quantity imported.

Various proposals have been made that the army should participate in the battle against drug dealers at frontiers, and the Department of Defence has commissioned the Rand Corporation to study this possibility.

Senator De Concini, one of the men in charge of the anti-drug war, has even suggested resorting to the Sdi, the Star Wars System, in the battle against the traffic in narcotics. However, our survey has shown that it is extremely difficult to reduce the use of cocaine in our country even by only 5%, by strengthening the methods of repression and making them more severe.