Jacob Sullum on Chuck Schumer’s Bogus Heroin Cure

Last month Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked for
“an emergency $100 million surge” in federal funding “to quickly
combat the fact that New York City has become the hotbed for the
East Coast heroin trade.” Schumer declared that “heroin
trafficking and usage are at epidemic levels,” adding that
“seizures of heroin in New York City in 2014 have already surpassed
those of any previous year since 1991, which demonstrates an
alarming trend that we must nip in the bud.”

Depending on how you define epidemic, says Jacob
Sullum, you may or may not agree with Schumer’s description of the
problem. But it is abundantly clear from a century of efforts to
suppress the heroin trade that Schumer’s solution—more spending on
supply-side measures such as seizing heroin and prosecuting heroin
dealers—is doomed to fail.

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