There has been talk of combining the ATF into the DEA. Gun rights groups are opposed to this (see also here). I’m not entirely convinced it is a bad idea. But that could be a bias of mine.
You see, I am of the opinion that the DEA should be abolished. Where in the constitution does it say the Feds have the authority to regulate recreational drugs? How many billions have they spend on the failed war on drugs? And if you don’t think it has actually failed, here are some things to consider:
The DEA was established in 1973, and tracking heroin street prices over the decades reveals some fascinating—and troubling—trends. Here’s a summary of the data I found:
📈 Heroin Street Price Trends (1973–2011)
The DEA’s Heroin Domestic Monitor Program began collecting consistent data in 1979, focusing on price per milligram of pure heroin. Here’s a snapshot of key years:
Year Avg. Price per mg Pure Heroin Notes 1982 ~$3.90 Very low purity (~7%) 1992 ~$1.50 Purity increased to ~28% 2007 ~$0.81 Mexican heroin purity ~33% 2011 ~$1.35 Mexican heroin purity dropped to ~17% These prices reflect retail-level purchases made by DEA agents in major U.S. cities.
🧪 Purity vs. Price
- As purity increased, price per mg of pure heroin dropped—making heroin more potent and affordable.
- By the 2000s, heroin from Mexico and South America dominated the U.S. market, with regional differences in purity and price.
📉 Long-Term Trend
From the early 1980s to the early 2000s:
- Price per pure mg dropped significantly
- Purity rose, peaking in some cities at over 60%
- This made heroin more dangerous and accessible, contributing to rising overdose rates
Since its founding in 1973, the DEA’s budget has grown dramatically—from $75 million in its first year to over $3.4 billion in recent years2.
💰 Estimated Total DEA Spending (1973–2023)
Using historical budget data from DEA.gov, here’s a rough cumulative estimate:
- 1973–1980: ~$1.4 billion
- 1981–1990: ~$2.7 billion
- 1991–2000: ~$13.2 billion
- 2001–2010: ~$22.6 billion
- 2011–2020: ~$28.6 billion
- 2021–2023: ~$9.5 billion
🧮 Grand Total Estimate: ~$78 billion
These figures are approximations based on annual appropriations and may not include all supplemental or off-budget expenditures.
📊 Spending Highlights
- The DEA’s budget has consistently increased, especially during periods of heightened drug enforcement focus (e.g., crack epidemic, opioid crisis).
- In 2023, the DEA requested $3.1 billion, a 6.3% increase over the previous year.
- The agency now operates in 93 foreign offices across 69 countries, reflecting its global reach.
So… if the war on drugs was effective you would think the price would go up and the purity would go down. That is pretty much a well-known economic law, right? But that is not what happened. It seems to me that either the war on drugs was ineffective and the price and purity changes were unrelated, or the DEA somehow contributed to the lower prices and increased purity.
Either way we are faced with the fact that the war on drugs has either failed or it is not about making it more difficult for people to obtain recreational drugs. Perhaps it is more about acquiring power as in the famous Ayn Rand quote from Atlas Shrugged.
In my mind, combing the ATF and DEA sort of makes sense because we might be able to get more support from those opposed to the war on drugs who might be opposed to reducing gun regulations.
OK, “drugs are bad.”
Then what?
Using too much drugs causes damage from inability to focus to death. The first is a financial issue affecting social life, employment, societal efficiency, etc. The second is….well, not my problem (we’re told about 100K people in America – most of whom are Americans – die annually from imported drugs, mostly fentanyl; are we better off without them, or should that be a cause celebre we need to correct?). Stuff in between, I probably should have some interest in, at least for the side- and carryover effects, but what? The fat blue-haired, nose-ringed employee at Home Depot isn’t any help to me now, would it be worse or better if it was 6 ft 2 inch blonde surfer Brad who was stoned?
I’ll agree that using US drug consumers as a profit center, while advantageous for the seller, whomever and wherever, isn’t much more than a Realized Business Opportunity that someone capitalized on, much like Sam Walton did with Walmart. Seems like it would be beneficial to keep that profit center in-house rather than allow outsiders to capitalize on the opportunity. California provided a textbook example on how efficiently government can do that, so……
There is, however, still lots of money being made in-house on the deal: police salaries, lawyers (always the lawyers, aren’t they consistently near the profit center of nearly everything?) judges, bailiffs, jails and jail staff, rehab facilities, technology suppliers, etc…..kind of a “Anti-Drug Industrial Complex” so there’s evidence of at least some profit being made in-house (I’d be curious just how much money actually flows in that direction – “Fighting Drugs” is paying a lot of suburban mortgages, buying plenty of groceries and putting new SUVs in driveways).
So, Joe, offer a plan and a projected outcome. What we have now clearly isn’t working, for multiple values of “working,” what would be better. And how to get there.
The end result may be to abolish both DEA and ATF as unconstitutional organizations and just stand back out of shrapnel range.
I believe Pournellles Iron Law of Bureaucracy might apply here also.
>. DEA somehow contributed to the lower prices and increased purity.
I’m not sure about price effects during prohibition, but distilling alcohol to increase potency was essential for bootlegging logistics, and has influenced American drinking culture to this day.
Interesting. I did not know that.
Thanks.
Mr. Huffman:
You said, “So… if the war on drugs was effective you would think the price would go up and the purity would go down.”
I beg to disagree with the comment on purity. If we postulate some kind of hypothetical, actually-effective form of prohibition enforcement (I cant actually think of one that would work, short of the death penalty for even tiny offenses), it is my opinion that the purity level of the drug being smuggled would INCREASE rather than decrease. The reason for this is that the smugglers are being paid for the actual amount of drug delivered to the intermediaries, and then on down to the dealers. If the penalty for smuggling 1 ton of heroin is the same as the penalty for smuggling 2 tons of heroin, then it only makes sense to smuggle the highest purity of drug possible to source.
If you’ve got heroin at 50% purity and you’re bringing in 2 tons of material, you’re only getting paid for 1 ton of heroin. If you’ve got heroin at 99.5% purity and you bring in 2 tons, you’re getting paid for 2 tons of heroin. If both crimes have the same penalty, you get paid twice as much for taking exactly the same risk. Even idiot criminals can do simple risk/reward assessments.
After all it can easily be stepped on (diluted down) once it’s in the hands of the intermediaries and dealers to keep it at street-level “purity” to help keep their customers from OD-ing. So I’m guessing that street-levels of “purity” have almost nothing to do with the smuggled levels of purity.
Fair enough. I had not thought of that.
Thanks.
While the DEA is fairly recent, its predecessor agencies go back a while. As I understand it, the first one was created around the time Prohibition was abolished, obviously to make sure bureaucrats at risk of having to find a real job would continue to have a sinecure in Washington.
There should only be two laws on the books regarding “recreational” drugs.
1- That it be sold in it’s natural, unrefined state OR at 99.9% purity to greater. (The first should be obvious, the second prevents dealer A cutting it to 205, and dealer B to 305, resulting in overdosing by the end user when they switch dealers).
2- That if you are over the age of 18 and do not have a valid RX for an opiod (with medical alert braclet), it is unlawful to administer NARCAN unless it is an accidental exposure. You want to “ride the dragon”, then you accept the risks,
“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
Hence books with such titles as https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent-ebook/dp/B00505UZ4G/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2XADX0QKTMNDZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.NiVMH7g9Ioj1FcCSmh0Ja2xKnEkr4VOhRt0Z3BceX44IzVe6sWu6Yh29yqsK7K00T8J-9Mu7y0vhYizITSXjergiGbPh9TEih17cR9TuuQw.LGZuZ964nv4BL7Jz70MhXRSUNEuSa1V2k9bnM0VpOs8&dib_tag=se&keywords=seven+felonies+a+day&qid=1752166890&sprefix=seven+felonies+a+day%2Caps%2C671&sr=8-1
“Winning” the war on drugs eliminates the DEA’s raison d’etre, just as solving homelessness breaks rice bowls for dozens of organizations.
“Where in the constitution does it say the Feds have the authority to regulate recreational drugs?”
I wondered the same thing a couple of years back, so I did some research. It took me a while, but eventually I turned up information about something called the “International Drug Control Conventions”, the latest versions of a series of international treaties that go back to the International Opium Convention of 1912, and require signatories to take steps to restrict trade in certain drugs. All of these treaties have been duly signed by the President and ratified by the US Senate, and under the treaty power in the Constitution, that makes them part of US law.
The ATF and the DEA are BOTH unconstitutional agencies who’s sole existence is to violate our Rights. NEITHER should exist.