In response to:
Comparing drugs to alcohol is an unfair comparison. I hear this all the time. For one, alcohol has a long history so we already know the consequences. We have no idea what would happen were drugs legalized.
Neither will crime decrease if drugs are legalized. Therefore it isn't a war on people. Criminals will find new ways to make money like selling drugs to children who will not be able to purchase them legally. The notion that criminals will become law-abiding citizens because drugs are legalized is a very optimistic assessment. If money were free would crime end? It would actually increase crime. Increasing welfare has not decreased crime but rather created a new dependent class which is exactly what would happen if drugs were legalized.
Forty years ago, the United States locked up fewer than 200 of every 100,000 Americans. Then President Nixon declared war on drugs. Now we lock up more of our people than any other country -- more even than the authoritarian regimes in Russia and China.
A war on drugs -- on people, that is -- is unworthy of a country that claims to be free.
Unfortunately, this outrage probably won't be discussed in Tampa or Charlotte.
The media (including Fox News) run frightening stories about Mexican cocaine cartels and marijuana gangs. Few of my colleagues stop to think that this is...
b.rox.com/gizmos/henningfield-benowitz/
Nicotine. Cocaine. Caffeine. Marijuana. Benowitz. Henningfield. Less More. The Henningfield-Benowitz substance comparison charts.
Black Market prices cause some people, to steal to satisfy their addiction. To say crime will not decrease is disingenuous. First of all 850000 of our fellow Americans would cease being arrested, annually. AND, Al Capone was replaced by Coors, Bud, Seagrams and a slew of other job producing, tax paying businesses. The Black Market in Alcohol disappeared, over night.
How do you think the Taliban are financed? Its not through "donations" alone. The vast majority of the money is from the opium trade. Why so much money? Because it is illegal. If it weren't, there would be no more money in than there is in the cotton trade.
And what are the Taliban doing with it? Killing Americans. How do you reconcile that?