It's no secret that we're losing the drug war. Take this very website and it's "legalize marijuana" posts as an almost certain truth of that. Anyone younger than 30 can say with certainty that they or many of their friends used and/or abused illegal substances. That being said the money they paid for those substances is almost all funnelled back across one of our borders. This has made way for an incredibly vibrant drug trade in which those willing to break the law, then stop at nothing to get the "goods" to their consumers. This takes a role in other things because it acts like a river sweeping up anything that can turn a profit. So, because the drug smuggling trade is so profitable, it's competition inspires further smuggling. Sex slaves, Weapons, and Humans all get caught in this industry. A family will pay a few thousand dollars to get into the US from the Mexican border, and when they get they're they're told to deliver this package to such and such address. The package is of course drugs. We've heard the routine before.
The point of all of that was to make it abundantly clear that we're competing against very wealthy and flatly evil people trying to get in anything they can make money on.
So, in this case the drug trade and immigration go hand in hand, we need better border control. Much, much, much better.
More importantly, Americans buy drugs. These drug warlords aren't getting paid by money trees, they're getting paid American dollars by Americans. And not just a few hundred of them but hundreds of millions, possibly billions, there's no reasonable way to calculate it all. We're essentially funding some of the most morally deplorable people on the face of the earth by allowing such a black market to thrive.
That is the primary reason why I think we should legalize and tax some illegal drugs. Chief among those Marijuana. The system as it stands works to first funnel money out of the country, then through us ignoring the problem users become abusers, and finally we've not only lost money but a useful citizen the only person getting richer is the drug dealer. I think that drugs, alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine should all be taxed in correlation to the amount of governmental healthcare spending their detrimental effects cause later. This takes the industry away from people willing to break the law, this narrows the funnel of smuggling, gives our people the ability to pay to correct the il effects, and most importantly dealing with the problem in a realistic fashion.
It's the only way I see that we can curb our society off of such an addiction. We create a way to be honest about the problems and then deal with them as we can. Much like the Truth campaign against cigarettes. Perhaps we can take from this that prohibition does no work. The only way to co-exist in a world that has drugs is to acknowledge their existence and educate ourselves on all of the effects. We can't simply deny their existence.
Comments (11)
George Soros - who paid a lot to get Obama elected - would love to have drugs legalized.
Soros has the money to set himself up as the world's leading supplier of mind altering drugs - if the USA will only legalize drugs.
How much has the war on drugs cost? How much would taxing drug use generate? How much would drug rehab cost if drugs were leagalized? My guess is that leagalizing drugs would at least pay for the problems it causes as opposed to costing the tax payer.
"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. President.
Speech, 18 Dec. 1840, to Illinois House of Representatives
@ricardomigrant
Do you think Soros isn't already getting paid by the miscreants currently supplying our drug trade?
The point is to keep the money away from hands willing to murder, kill, and slave trade their way through America.
If the USA would legalize drugs we could allow restrictions and keep that money here. We could more easily control their distribution and deal with the consequences realistically instead of pretending that the problem doesn't exist.
Mr. Soros or Mr. Drug maker, in a legalized America would be smart to allow him/herself to be subject to the American laws surrounding controlled substances. Therefore he would hopefully make his own agenda's appeal to the Americans buying his product, and the government protecting those Americans. Not to the thieving murderers on the other side of the border happily living in luxury at your children's and grandchildren's expense.
Experts suggest that if the US were to legalize marijuana it would take away 60% of the Mexican Drug Cartel's profit. How many businesses do you know that could survive a 60% drop in profit?
If they tax marijuana like they do tobacco, the potheads will still complain. That said, many of them don't pay any taxes now, so it could be an improvement.
My request, whether any more drugs are legalized or not, is that all forms of intoxication while driving be made a felony on the first offense and that killing another while driving intoxicated be a capitol offense.
@jwelborn
I totally agree in putting heavy first time punishment on intoxicated drivers. If you can't exercise enough control over yourself to simply declare a DD you shouldn't be allowed on the road... At the least.
All of the current smoking laws would be expanded to cover marijuana as well as tobacco, correct?
@jwelborn
I'd assume that to be reasonably true providing the scientific fact and research is there to prove it's secondary and public health detriments.
If there are bars and restaurants that would wish to be havens for drug users, tabacco or otherwise, let it be, only they'll make sure if they're advertising as "public" they do what needs to be done to protect those not wishing to suffer the drugs effect to be protected. Otherwise it should be advertised like any hooka bar or smoking joint.
No one wants to walk into Denny's only to leave high.
sounds like we are on pretty much the same page.
I'm all for legalizing marijuana in all it's many forms,but when it comes to the hard drugs like cocaine,heroine and meth,it becomes more complex.Most marijuana user's are hard working employee's as well as student's and most of them peace loving people who wouldn't harm a soul.As far as hard drugs are concerned,I think that to legalize any of them would be opening Pandora's box and could cause some serious trouble for at least 5-10 years.It's a fact that no matter how cheap the government could sell these drugs to addict's,the addicts will continue to commit crimes to support their habit's.How else will they be able to buy them?To think for one minute that a crack addict or a heroin junkie would seek employment to feed their habit if these drugs were legal is insane.Plus if I owned my own company,there is no way in hell I'd ever hire a practicing drug addict.I would hire marijuana user's,but I would have to have a test that can show if they have used it within a time window of 10-12 hours before reporting for work.As of right now,no such test exist.So even if it were 100% legal,who could buy it and use it if all the high paying job's continue to hire and fire based on drug testing?I'm all for legalizing marijuana for adult's over the age of 21,but if me and million's of other hard working tax paying citizen's can't use it because of the risk of losing our job's,then I'm most definately against legalizing it because it would cause more problem's than we have now.In order for this country to fully reap the reward's of marijuana legalization,the recent use test must be developed.It would be easy to detect it if people only smoked it,but you can eat it and drink it as well,and there it becomes nearly impossible to detect recent use because THC leaves the body to slowly as opposed to alcohol.So to legalize marijuana only for a certain segment of our population while excluding another who are the back bone of this nation,is impractical and wholly unfair.People can sit and say that drug testing is wrong and it's their bodies and noone should have the right to know what people do in their privacy of their own homes and they are 100% right to think so,but the sad fact is that for most adult's in the work place,drug testing is a stark reality and nothing will ever change that.We have only to look back a mere 25 years and see who's squarely to blame for this.Ronald Reagan and George H.W.Bush,and the voter's of that "JUST SAY NO"era.