Government Regulation: The Cure for Negative Externalities of Drug Use?

     Rhode Island is instituting government controlled sites for the injection of illicit drugs. This is quite an interesting turn of events, instead of enforcing the existing laws, this state is changing its policies to effectively end the use of illicit drugs.

    Currently, drug use is countered with fines and prison time. This action has a very high negative externality for society, as the administrative costs and cost of imprisoning drug users is so high. Also, the use of these drugs has further amplified the HIV/Aids epidemic and crime, costing society even more. 

    As illicit drug use is still rampant, Rhode Island has realized its current policies are not working and are implementing a new way to curb drug use: safe injection sites. These locations will provide safe and clean access to drugs and work to slowly get those addicted off of the substances. This will lower prison and crime rates, as well as drug-related diseases as it will all occur under government regulation. This is an exciting new tactic and I hope it will work as it will greatly reduce negative externalities by reducing crime rates (the drugs are freely available and will not need to be purchased by addicts), and increasing healthy practices (clean needles and sanitized injection sites). 

I think this falls under government as a paternal figure when it comes to justifying government regulation, and as our current efforts have not worked, I am hopeful to see if these new practices will effectively put an end to illicit drug use.