Crime & Justice
Stanford Economist Claims Drug War Fails While Hitman Market Successfully Suppressed
Sean Carroll Mindscape
353 | Alvin Roth on the Economics of Morally Contested Markets
What was said
"Why is it easy to buy drugs but hard to hire a hitman? Our laws are the same. If we catch drug dealers or hitmen, we put them away for a long time, but it's working for hitmen. There's very little market for commercial killing. The same laws that work so well against hitmen aren't working so well against drugs."
Alvin Roth argued that identical legal penalties produce radically different outcomes: commercial assassination has been virtually eliminated while drug markets thrive despite enforcement. He noted that over 40% of federal prisoners have drug convictions yet overdose deaths remain high, and cited the inability to keep drugs out of prisons as evidence that purely police and military methods have failed.
Verification status
Attributed speaker claim
Egleze verified who said this and where. The underlying claim has not been independently established by Egleze.
Source and context
Egleze verified who said this and where. The underlying claim has not been independently established by Egleze.
- Programme
- Sean Carroll Mindscape
- Episode
- 353 | Alvin Roth on the Economics of Morally Contested Markets
- Clip time
- 28:28
- Original source
- Watch the source segment →
From this episode
Sean Carroll Mindscape