After Frank Potts molested an eleven-year-old girl in 1982, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Six years later, he was granted an early release, despite his parole report warning that he was still dangerous. Sadly, the report proved prescient, as Potts was arrested a second time in 1994 after he molested another eleven-year-old girl.
Once he was back behind bars, authorities began searching Potts’s forty-acre property on Alabama’s Garrett Mountain. Local rumors had long circulated that there were bodies buried around the property, and they were finally confirmed with the discovery of the remains of a nineteen-year-old man who had gone missing in 1989. The rough mountain terrain impeded their search for more bodies, but authorities believed Potts had committed as many as fifteen murders since his release from prison.
Given that the parole report warned that Pott’s was high-risk, why was he freed?
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act, passed in 1986, dramatically expanded mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences, including marijuana possession. The act was a gift to violent criminals and sex offenders, who were often granted early release to make room for convicted drug users. Frank Potts was one such beneficiary, allowing him to enjoy a six-year killing spree.
From education to nutrition and healthcare, this series has looked at how individuals are better positioned to make decisions regarding their well-being than bureaucrats and politicians, but this doesn’t mean that people never make poor choices. Substance abuse certainly reflects poor personal choices, and many people look to the State to prevent it. But even policies meant to save people from their own reckless decisions, such as the War on Drugs, often cause more harm than they prevent.
The fentanyl crisis reveals another way that prohibitionist policies have exacerbated the problems they were designed to prevent. Economist Mark Thornton has shown that one unintended consequence of drug prohibition is an increase in potency, by creating an incentive for smugglers to maximize the street value of their product while minimizing its size. This phenomenon, known as the Iron Law of Prohibition, played out during alcohol prohibition, as rumrunners found it more cost effective to smuggle moonshine than beer.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is only the most recent—and most deadly—manifestation of the Iron Law of Prohibition. Fentanyl is now linked to nearly all overdose deaths, as drug dealers mix it with black market heroin, cocaine, and amphetamines. By contrast, legal intoxicants, such as alcohol and tobacco—though still dangerous—remain fentanyl free.
We all want our loved ones to make good choices, but when they don’t, we hope they can recover and learn from their mistakes. The War on Drugs has failed in its efforts to protect people from making bad decisions, but it has made those mistakes far deadlier, and it has allowed innocent bystanders to become collateral damage along the way.
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