Posted on 08/21/2019 10:37:29 AM PDT by SleeperCatcher
A new study by the non-partisan RAND Corporation helps explain why it’s going to be difficult, if not impossible, to ever stop the illicit drug trade: It’s worth tens of billions of dollars per year.
Researchers at the think tank wrote in their report that illegal narcotics generate some $150 billion annually, or as much as the amusement and gambling industry generated in 2016.
The exhaustive analysis of drug use and spending data contained in the report indicates that there are about 30 million chronic drug users in the U.S. alone as of 2016, with major increases in the number of methamphetamine, marijuana, and heroin users.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenationalsentinel.com ...
Technology has the solution - genetically modify drug sniffing dogs to eat drugs without getting sick. Clone them and let them loose.
narcotics generate some $150 billion annually,...
Someone’s been holding out on me.
The fact that illicit drug trade in prison can’t be stopped ought to be a pretty big clue that you can’t stop it.
You can make money by selling illegal drugs? Why haven’t we been told this before?
There IS a solution. It is called repentance and conversion. It happens when it is brought to the mind of a sinner that there is an afterlife of either eternal torment alone or eternal pleasure with God and the great ones of history and celestial beings who love and adore God.
You cannot love both God and mammon.
It’s got to be a lot more than $150B.
Money laundering banks, prisons, criminal justice, dea all benefit and feed on illicit drugs.
we really need to investigate dea because when you look at the stacks of fentanyl worth tens of millions in the picture, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t be recycled via middlemen. The police state agencies operate in secret and we really can’t know what they do.
ML/NJ
That’s enough to buy a lot of politicians.
How about death sentences for selling, smuggling, etc?
No plea bargains either.
I suppose it would be racist. /s
To put this in perspective, they are generating roughly the same revenue as the entire legal pharmaceutical industry is worldwide.
The fact that illicit drug trade in prison can’t be stopped ought to be a pretty big clue that you can’t stop it.
What does history teach us? In the early 1800’s alcohol consumption per capita was extremely high. This caused many social/moral and personal problems. Divorce was high and marriage suffered. This began a LONG process ending in prohibition which was too far. But can you imagine how bad the alcoholism was that it led to prohibition?
Now you may snigger at the war on drugs, but imagine what it would be like if we hadn’t...........................
Someone should make an infomercial...
But as others have noted, the big players in the system, the dealers, politicians, police and federal agencies... all benefit enormously from keeping drugs illegal.
A few hundred thousand a year dead from altered/illicit drugs is no big deal if you are making billions off of them being kept illegal.
The question that is difficult to answer is: would legalizing most illicit drugs solve more problems than it creates?
Would it put most of the 150 billion into legal circulation?
Would it cut down on drug overdoses and deaths?
Yep - and the same people who brought the war on drugs to you will bring the war on guns - promise that they will protect you from them. Good people will obey the law - and bad people will find every way to avoid the law - even in the places where the law is most heavily enforced. Evil always finds a way.
” when you look at the stacks of fentanyl worth tens of millions in the picture”
Plus that’s only what made it into the picture. We have no idea if half of it didn’t simply disappear before it was inventoried.
“In the early 1800’s alcohol consumption per capita was extremely high.”
Yeah, that may have had something to do with the fact that we hadn’t invented modern water treatment methods yet, so alcohol was one of the few safe things to drink without poisoning yourself.
So the reduction in alcohol consumption may have more to do with the availability of safe drinking water than prohibition, which was a failure by all accounts.
Idiotic headline. Eliminating the illegal trade is simple and would only take one simple sentence in law. “All laws regarding drug consumption by competent persons are hereby nullified.”
The US is a permissive country. Unless there is a law prohibiting something then it is not illegal. We are not France where we need permission to do something. So remove the laws that criminalize the use of drugs.
Two caveats. Crime is still crime so drug usage should not be an acceptable defense. No freebies from the results of personal choices. You OD on fentanyl you don’t get Narcan or free medical care. Personal choices even ones with horrific outcomes come with personal responsibility.
I missed the point.
Do you appreciate the battle against alcoholism and it positive effects.
Can you imagine what our society would be like if we hadn’t fought the drug battle?
Exactly - it was the voluntary social pressure of Temperance, not the too-far governmental Prohibition, that was needed and effective. The lesson for today is obvious.
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