If we did this, what happens to all the people employed in the drug war business (agents, prisons, weapons, etc)? Jobs, jobs, jobs will be lost!
In the 40 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” the supply and use of drugs has not changed in any fundamental way. The only difference: a taxpayer bill of more than $1 trillion.
A senior Mexican official who has spent more than two decades helping fight the government’s war on drugs summed up recently what he’s learned from his long career: “This war is not winnable.”
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Growing numbers of Mexican and U.S. officials say—at least privately—that the biggest step in hurting the business operations of Mexican cartels would be simply to legalize their main product: marijuana. Long the world’s most popular illegal drug, marijuana accounts for more than half the revenues of Mexican cartels.“Economically, there is no argument or solution other than legalization, at least of marijuana,” said the top Mexican official matter-of-factly. The official said such a move would likely shift marijuana production entirely to places like California, where the drug can be grown more efficiently and closer to consumers. “Mexico’s objective should be to make the U.S. self-sufficient in marijuana,” he added with a grin.
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If the war on drugs has failed, analysts say it is partly because it has been waged almost entirely as a la w-and-order issue, without understanding of how cartels work as a business.For instance, U.S. anti-drug policy inadvertently helped Mexican gangs gain power.
Meth Addicts Demand Government Address Nation’s Growing Spider Menace
http://theonion.com/content/news/meth_addicts_demand_government
Legalization would cause the bad guys to either become tailors and the like, or force them to push more powerful designer drugs that addict with the first hit and only they control. Which do you think more likely?
RBG
#22 Legalization, of pot, would supply some farming and coffeehouse work for potheads. It would also take a lot of funding away from bad guys.
I question your use of the term “push.” The idea that people are being forced to use drugs is foolish. There is a demand, obviously, which is going to be served no matter what the cost.
That being said, there would be no great demand for harder drugs if pot was legalized. The flip side of everyone realizing pot is not as dangerous as other drugs is that they do realize that the others are very dangerous.
It does no good to prohibit and punish a behavior that most people have, have had, or are willing to condone. Of course there are always a noisy minority willing to fight the good fight to make the world a better place by punishing these weak willed individuals. Exactly like the prohibition. Some drugs are dangerous while others are not. Marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol and has always been popular. This kind of moral ambiguity always makes matters worse. I agree with the Mexicans, but the US is famous for letting a noisy minority decide for a sleeping majority.
#23 Chris. The force involved is called “addiction.” Addiction can override free will by making the body dependent upon the drug. Basic stuff.
That neutralizing the pot industry would not require imaginative criminals to create a new profitable drug industry for themselves is naive at best.
We’ve seen mj jump from a benign ~5% THC to a potent ~30%. Think suddenly that is now the upper limit? The illegal drug industry will always be one step ahead of what’s acceptable by society. That’s how they make their $.
RBG
Its changed (alittle) in the last few years..
But the LAWS said..that if 1 Plant was found on a farmers lands, HE LOST HIS LAND.
Lets find some HEMP seeds, and throw them in the irrigation..
#25 You continue to conflate pot with hard drugs. About 10-15% of adults smoke pot. Hard drugs are maybe 1/10th that. There is some overlap in those populations, but upper/downer users tend to take their dissolution more seriously and spend money on the bigger buzz. Failure to see the difference between the two related businesses is bad for everybody.
Legalizing pot means fewer traffickers, fewer dealers, and fewer guns heading south to Mexico. The trade would quickly be dominated by agribusiness, with a decreasing residual amount of secret grows.
That is all to the good. The transactional amount of illegal trade would fall dramatically, allowing police to focus on the remaining traffickers. There is a whole different attitude and level of violence in that business. Nobody will complain.
More potent pot is also no argument, because it makes it a less dangerous substance. Smoking anything is not good. Since users get high quicker they smoke less. There’s no overdose potential, unlike with alcohol or nicotine.
Your reading of the drugs business is also in error. These are not scheming masterminds bent on shaping society. Simply moving some plant extract from one place to another gives 10x profit, or more. What makes it unstoppable is that poor people can make a year’s salary for a day of work. No advertising campaign can compete with that.
One need not travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to ongoing persecution of hippies, communists, and non-whites under prosecution of the war on drugs. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance global credibility.
The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as lives are flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. Behold, it’s all good. When Eve ate the apple, she knew a good apple, and an evil prohibition. Canadian Marc Emery is being extradited to prison for selling seeds that American farmers use to reduce U. S. demand for Mexican pot. Former U.K. chief drugs advisor Prof. Nutt was sacked for revealing that scientific risk-assessment does not correlate with penalties.
The CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) reincarnates Al Capone, endangers homeland security, and throws good money after bad. Administration fiscal policy burns tax dollars to root out the number-one cash crop in the land, instead of taxing sales. Society rejected the plague of prohibition, but it mutated. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment.
Nixon passed the CSA on the false assurance that the Schafer Commission would later justify criminalizing his enemies. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA shut down research, and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use, period. Drug juries exclude bleeding hearts.
The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership or an act of Congress to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. God’s children’s free exercise of religious liberty may include entheogen sacraments to mediate communion with their maker.
Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.
Common-law holds that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers undersigned that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration. Liberty is prerequisite to the refinement of best drug-use practices.