Not to be sniffed at

If I place a football in front of my baby brother, metres away from a window, and the upshot is broken glass, my parent's response can be easily predicted: you should have known better, they would say. So why, when drug dealers sell mind-altering substances to their clients, knowing full-well that they are increasing the likelihood of criminal damage, are they not held accountable for their actions? Here, I will argue for a change in the law to close this responsibility deficit.

Under the proposed model, claimants - victims of crime - could press claims against the drug dealers - the perpetrators - for damages to their property or person. In other words, dealers would be liable in the civil courts for negligence.

It is insufficient, however, to rely on intuition alone, or to extrapolate principles from isolated analogies, like the one I began this piece with. So I will endeavour to explain and establish the legal precedents which underpin my argument while claiming that, in all regards, this delivers superior victims' justice.

Drug dealers facilitate crime, albeit indirectly, since it is eminently foreseeable that when they sell dangerous substances to dangerous people, many will be inspired to do dangerous things. Hand an unstable person an addictive pill, one which encourages him to disregard social taboos - like not attacking strangers - and it is all too easy to predict the outcome. Added to this, dealers tend to be rooted in a community. Because of this, and because of the incentive know the disposition of the client (making it a less risky transaction, safer in the knowledge that he is less likely to blab to the wrong people), they have a reasonably informed view of their customers. Hence they can anticipate how these people will act both when under the influence, and following the event when desperate for another 'fix'.

Addiction is another thing that dealers understand perfectly well. They actively use it to manipulate their customers. Often, they will initiate proceedings with inexpensive, 'softer' drugs, ratcheting up the price and addictiveness until customers are either totally hooked or unable to pay any more. Meanwhile demand becomes more inelastic and dealers gain greater leverage over their increasingly-dependent customers. In this way, dealers fuel addictions to maximise their profits, seemingly without regard for the consequences of their actions.

What are the consequences? Accumulative crime, in the main. If the addict needs quick-cash to fund his or her addiction, then he will likely turn to crime, for the reasons outlined below. In many cases, were we to chart the path of money, we would not be unduly surprised by the perverse directness of it: addicts steal cash which goes straight into the pocket of the dealer and further up the criminal network. So, by allowing victims to sue addicts, we are, in effect, allowing them to retrieve what was originally theirs. Just as courts ask people to pay damages, so in this case dealers are being forced to give back what they, however indirectly, have stolen from hardworking citizens.

As has been illustrated, dealers are responsible, at least to some degree. 'Ah', I hear you exclaim, 'but what about the real criminals, the ones who actually inflict the damage? Are they now free to walk away?' No more than before, is the answer; nothing mentioned (in this quite separate, civil suit) would downplay the severity of their crime or the sentencing they would expect to receive. This merely confers an additional layer of responsibility, a concept to which there is no theoretical limit. To appreciate why there is no fixed-pot of responsibility, consider the two extremes: In some instances - most notably insanity cases - we apportion no blame; In others - such as involving a getaway driver abetting a murderer - the misdeeds of the driver do not absolve the principle agent; both are charged on separate counts, as if the other were not present at the trial.

Ultimately this model benefits the victims. Under the status quo, they are only able to prosecute the drug addicts. Typically, this is not a profitable or worthwhile venture, since addicts are cash-poor - the sheer cost of drugs, and their deleterious effects take care of that. So why bother? Now, though, they can sue the men with the money, recouping what is rightfully theirs. The addicts may well still be subject to criminal prosecutions but, whereas, once upon a time their victims suffered in silence, now they can attack those beneath the surface, behind the crimes that blight their lives.

Other arguments can be made about how this might reform the behaviour of drug dealers or lead to a crime reduction. The thinking might go that under this model, the risk-reward ratio has changed, encouraging dealers to introduce more stringent filter mechanisms to determine to whom they sell drugs. By selling to more stable characters, they could thereby limit their own exposure to the law. Still, expecting dealers to grow halos overnight seems a bit idealistic. But even if they refuse to change a thing, there will still be more money available for victims. That cannot be too bad.

But as I say, drug dealers are smart; they give candy to babies and then ask for it back. If they can manage that, they can probably outsmart this scheme too.