Warner K E
Department of Public Health Policy and Administration, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109-2029.
Milbank Q. 1991;69(4):641-61.
Although applications of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to the problem of drug policy are few in number and relatively primitive, they illustrate both the potential and limitations of CBA to produce critical insights that might improve drug policy making. But even the ideal CBA of drug policy could never produce a definitive conclusion about the desirability of drug legalization. Another tool of economics, analysis of price elasticity of demand, holds the potential to generate understanding of the likely effects of policy changes in the monetary and psychological prices associated with policy reforms.
尽管成本效益分析（CBA）在毒品政策问题上的应用数量较少且相对原始，但它们展示了CBA在产生可能改善毒品政策制定的关键见解方面的潜力和局限性。但即使是理想的毒品政策成本效益分析，也永远无法就毒品合法化的可取性得出明确结论。经济学的另一个工具，即需求价格弹性分析，有可能让人理解与政策改革相关的货币价格和心理价格方面政策变化可能产生的影响。
