Marijuana legalization and market-based visas share common roots. Both seek to end a black market and replace it with a legalize-and-tax structure -- but not because its proponents are necessarily fans of either recreational drugs or immigration. Rather, the conviction stems from both theory and practice: black markets create worse side effects than the problem they are ostensibly designed to address. Prohibition created Al Capone. The war on drugs is responsible for half of the violent crime rate in US inner cities and perhaps two-thirds of homicides in Mexico. It is not a minor issue or inconvenience: black markets and related enforcement literally determine the culture and economic prospects of communities. Ending a black market with a legalize-and-tax policy will create materially better policy outcomes than persisting with ever greater enforcement efforts inevitably doomed to failure.
Marijuana legalization may be showing a path forward, as it is gradually gaining traction with conservatives. Bloomberg notes that "initiatives on the ballot in a handful of conservative states show Republicans are increasingly on board with legalization as well -- perhaps paving the way for an end to federal prohibition, no matter who controls Washington."
Piecemeal legislation has demonstrated, however imperfectly, that legalizing pot is not the end of the world. “People are just much less afraid of marijuana than they used to be,” said John Fanburg, co-chair of the cannabis practice at a New Jersey-based law firm, as he was quoted by Bloomberg.
Perhaps we will eventually arrive at similar place for a market-based approach to illegal immigration, one which accepts that fighting against titanic economic forces seeking to arbitrage wage differentials across the Rio Grande is pointless. Rather, migrants should pay the market value for the right to work in the US. In doing so, we can close the unsecured southwest border to illegal immigration while limiting the migrant headcount, create order in our own communities, and push migrant gross wages up to prevailing rates to protect domestic workers. The average American gets this. Perhaps at some point in the future, the dialogue on illegal immigration in professional circles will also turn to the traditional, proven remedies for ending black markets, including the black market in migrant labor. Conservatives' gradual acceptance of marijuana legalization shows that minds can be changed over time.