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.”
[…]
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.
[…]
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.
Gangs gaining power from trafficing in banned goods, huh, sounds like prohibition era results.
How about programs like intervention and jobs (real jobs, not pelosi jobs) to help curb demand?
Nah!!
“real jobs, not pelosi jobs”
hey parrot, whats the difference?
Let’s curb demand for beer, wine, and the hard stuff too!
Or, make the punishment a response to a crime (drunken driving is a good model). Load up on all the crap you want, at home, but don’t even think about leaving your residence else you’ll face large fines and jail time for public intoxication.
At this point, anyone who drives after having even one drink is inviting legal problems. Have an accident after one drink, even if it wasn’t your fault, and you’ll have a hard time. If the insurance companies started refusing to pay for your loss, because of one drink or hit, I bet some people would soon be without a car.
Criminalize neglect of responsibilities, not of substances.
The problem arose when the government tried to equate pot with heroin meth, and barbiturates. They were just not taken seriously after that.
If the implications of this weren’t so serious it would be an SNL skit for government stupidity. We’ve been though prohibition before and all it did was give rise to the gangsters. Now we’ve got the drug cartels.
I have an idea, decriminalize drugs but, how about the old english laws of death for pretty much everything, and make it retroactive. It should make the environmental groups happy fewer people less consumption of resources. It would make conservatives happy as they get the death penalty debate decided. Democrats are happy as health care costs decrease, and fewer folks in prison. Fewer poor people so rich folks are happy. Everybody gets their legal drugs, as long as you don’t get caught. See I solved all the problems over less than one beer. Oh and poor houses too.
Nice simple solution just like ending prohibition eliminated all the problems caused by alcohol. Probably won’t be able to smoke pot in a public place though.
I reluctantly accede to the growth of hemp and its sell. It’s use should follow the same rules as tobacco and alcohol.
If I were a company I still most likely wouldn’t hire you. It doesn’t do much for the little gray cells.
While Mexico is at it, a country with strong gun control laws, how are the cartel’s getting US manufactured automatic weaponry? That policy obviously failed, so why not make weapon ownership in Mexico entirely legal?
Legalizing drugs is okay with me but that is not going to get rid of gangs and crime. They won’t just go “okay, you win, we’ll go get jobs”. They will turn to even more violent crime like kidnapping.
Other things, like how we conduct trials and run our prisons, will have to change to end the criminal gangs.
How do communities/cities work in Mexico? Are the police in charge, and the populace lives in fear of everyone? Are their community organizations that protect the individual?
There’s no simple answer for Social problems.
How drug decriminalizations is working well in Holland and Portugal (which are countries with a strong social security and a peaceful, small population) but might not work at all in Mexico (a country with a whole lot more social insecurity and human rights problems).
Same thing with Public Health care, and how the European model, working perfectly in France and Scandinavian Countries, might not work at all in the States (unless people are willingly prepared to pay more taxes)
It is – of course – absolute bull.
The REAL reason for wanting to legalise it is because the various Treasuries can see all this money sloshing about and they can’t tax it.
Come on! It’s not too difficult to limit drugs, do it at source. Soldiers in Afghanistan are walking past field after field of poppies. Where on earth do the authorities think THAT product is going? A real, and by that I mean an unrestricted war on plantations by the US and Mexico as well as on dealers would severely restrict supply – surely that is as obvious as it is possible to be. Armies of soldiers from both sides would (if properly led, not restricted by ‘social’ concerns or political shenanigans) produce a huge reduction. Further, any person caught with drugs is dealt with in several ways, detained, forced into treatment, compulsory tested for long periods of time for abuse etc. The problem, as in so many cases is the inadequacies those charged with dealing with it. Be rather different if they were less job secure.
The obvious and inevitable answer to the problem is the destruction of the US Dollar. No money, no drugs. No gangs selling drugs. No commerce in addictive drugs. And the Mexicans will start going home! Prostitution will become rampant even what used to be middle class communities. Unfortunately, so will burglary, robbery and kidnapping.
The president and his political party are working on this solution….
The question is: Will our politicians give up the bribes from illegal marijuana for the safety of the public? The answer has consistently been NO!, but they are desperate for new funding they can put on the books instead of in their pockets. They are on the horns of a dilemma and will, obviously take the easiest way out.
#5 I agree. Governments thus brought the administration of justice into disrepute.
I don’t think there can be major change in the USA until the people who enforce the laws are convinced that they don’t make the laws. The obvious way to do that would be a change in the leadership of the drug enforcement agencies. Until then, it’s all just talk–or worse.
#15
“No dollar no drugs…”?!?!? WTF
Do You think there’s only one currency in the world?
Oh! you’re really saying: “devalue American economy and the troubles evaporate, but new ones arise.”
BULL!
There’s just one way to a better society: promote the people. Give them value. Either by education or by culture. And for that you need a rich economy.
There are problems with the plan though. First, the idea that these criminal gangs will just vanish if you take away their cash cow is ridiculous. They’ll move on to greener pastures and keep being the same old violent criminal gangs we hate and loathe. Second, no matter what Mexico does, there’s always another drug market somewhere, you’d have to legalize drugs worldwide, not just pot but *ALL* drugs, in order to have any beneficial effects and that’s insane. Third, someone said that ending prohibition ended all alcohol-related problems and that’s plainly untrue. Alcohol and alcoholism are still major problems in our culture, ask the thousands of people killed in drunk-driving accidents every year and the billions spent on alcoholic treatment programs. Just making something legal doesn’t make it safe.
#19 Legalized pot would be a “gateway” to legalization of all drugs? Less incarceration for hard drug users probably, but not legalization.
The government posited that pot is deadly dangerous. I don’t think anyone really believes that anymore.
I just can’t imagine a “Legalize Crack\Smack” movement, but lets try: …Toothless people with severe skin problems marching on government buildings to demand the ability to use…
…Doctors explaining to depressed people how to properly construct a crack pipe or to excited people how to prepare a syringe…
… Crack brownies and Heroin handicrafts(made from real poppy stems)…
Just too silly!
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.