The Measured Cost of the Inversion

The inversion’s measured cost is 2.6 million alcohol deaths per year sustained over decades of legal protection.

Meanwhile, people are imprisoned, lives destroyed, families broken, and communities devastated for possession of an herb that kills no one and treats many, and a wild mushroom that may be the most effective antidepressant ever discovered.

The economic cost: 2.6% of global GDP consumed by alcohol harm. Net zero consumed by cannabis or psilocybin harm. (The 2.6% GDP figure is gross cost.

Net cost after subtracting alcohol industry revenue and employment contribution remains above 2% of GDP. The correction is to make the industry internalise its destabilisation, not to destroy the industry.)

The policy cost: billions spent on prohibition enforcement and incarceration. The human cost: millions incarcerated globally for cannabis and psilocybin offences, disproportionately from racial minorities, in a system designed from inception to target those minorities.