So we need low prices for addicts and very high prices for non-addicts. You know that this is a view which sought expression in a p0licy of distinguishing not so much between so_called soft drugs and hard drugs, as between drugs with an inductive value and drugs without an inductive value, and above all between elastic and inelastic types of drug consumption. From this stems a policy of law enforcement directed towards new and potential consumers, small dealers, and the small trade that takes place on street corners; a policy oflaw enforcement according to an economic rationality of the market differentiated in terms of the elements I have referred to.

Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, loc. 1353