[ml/nj]

Seems to me, that if street drugs were legalized, the $150 Billion would probably go down to $150 million. I doubt there would be more people taking them than there are now. I certainly wouldn't take them.

ML/NJ

[marktwain]

Thirty million chronic drug users is 10% of the U.S. population. They would likely prefer the drugs to be legal.

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?

[NobleFree]

Seems to me, that if street drugs were legalized, the $150 Billion would probably go down to $150 million.

The War on Drugs is welfare for dealers.

I doubt there would be more people taking them than there are now. I certainly wouldn't take them.

Really? You mean you're less afraid of the remote chance of arrest than you are of addiction and death?! /s

[monkeyshine]

If there was no profit in them then there would be far less drug gang murders, and far less robberies and burglaries by addicts who need to finance an expensive habit. $150 billion is a low estimate - the money going to the drug dealers. But add in all the police, interdiction, incarceration, the deaths, the property crimes and higher costs of insurance. It’s probably costing America $500 billion to $1 trillion a year.