Street prices unaffected

Supply and demand dictates that as supplies dry up and demand remains steady, prices will climb. It also dictates that prices will fluctuate with demand.

According to the UN, the street cost of heroin and cocaine in the United States, when adjusted for inflation and purity, has been constrained to a relatively narrow band for the past two decades. For Heroin, the band has been $342-618 in 2010 dollars. For cocaine, the range was $129-278.

The most expensive year was 1990.The reason for this was most likely due to demand, combined with the fact that many drug dealers were engaged in the violent turf wars of the 80s and early 90s. It is obvious that drug enforcement has little effect on prices. I would guess that the spike in prices on the left side is more due to the poor economy and weakness of the dollar than anything else.

It is obvious that prices are not fluctuating, which means that the war on drugs is not changing the supply or demand of street drugs like heroin and cocaine. The only real variations in the street price are other market factors like turf wars and currency fluctuations.

We are losing how much liberty to fight this losing war on drugs?