The supporters of regulation sometimes claim that buyers who suffer the dangers inherent in a black market are merely "getting what they deserve." We cannot evaluate this claim without moving outside of praxeology into ethics. It should be noted, however, that those who make this claim belie their own supposedly benevolent concern for the consumer, a concern that seemingly provided the initial impetus behind such legislation.
Furthermore, if the prohibited product is highly addictive, as in the case of narcotics enforcement, then the consequences of the prohibition are not confined to buyers and sellers, but also impact others in society. Few policy issues elicit such heated passions as the drug laws, and assumptions based on "emotional thinking" can easily blind us to the real effects of such laws. In order to understand these effects, a dispassionate analytical approach such as that of praxeology is imperative. Upon examination, it is clear that some of the most damaging consequences of narcotics legislation fall upon innocent third parties:
- The black-market price of an illegal drug, like the price of any other consumers' good, tends toward its total marginal cost to producers, including a premium for the producers' risk. The risk and total cost will obviously escalate sharply if the prohibition is rigorously enforced. In addition, we shall see in Section 5 that black-market provision may also take on some of the features of a legal monopoly (or oligopoly), further increasing the price of the product.
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