I agree that unwise taxation & regulation would cancel out many benefits. It would simply become "prohibition light".
Do you agree that if marijuana, for example, were taxed and regulated in a similar manner to alcohol, that the violence associated with the marijuana trade would be reduced? Would the cartels have any incentive grow pot in our national forests?
Drug gangs will move to even greater marketing efforts to youths, since they will never allow minors to shoot up heroin, etc.
Kids don't get their alcohol from drug gangs. They get it from older brother or Uncle Ted who got it from the liquor store, which got it from Annheiser-Busch.
Why would the same not be true for marijuana if it were taxed & regulated like alcohol?
I also fear a whole new class of welfare for the poor souls who cannot be allowed to "fall through the net" if they get addicted.
Drugs are cheap and plentiful today, and I understood you to say that the law goes pretty easy on simple users. Anyone who wants to abuse an illegal drug can do so at a reasonable cost and in relative safety. What is your evidence that addiction would increase if drugs were taxed and regulated like alcohol?
Many advocates use the American experience of Prohibition to predict behavior should hard drugs be legalized. I believe there is a flaw here in this methodology. There has never been a widespread culture of consumption of drugs in the United States as there has been with alcohol. Furthermore, alcohol can be used for purposes other than mind altering effects, hence the existence of non alcoholic beer and the like. Also, the possession and consumption of alcohol was never illegal during Prohibition. The production and distribution was banned, so to one degree or another people kept drinking throughout whether it was from a private stash bought before 1919 or at a local speakeasy.
I am not sure what will happen. I saw an article recently that stated that the Mafia made MORE money from alcohol after prohibition, than during. They just muscled in on legal producers. Will the Mexican gangs melt away? I doubt it. Maybe they will supply at a lower cost, or a more powerful product than the regulators will allow. I don't think they'll all get jobs at Walmart.
“Kids don't get their alcohol from drug gangs. They get it from older brother or Uncle Ted who got it from the liquor store, which got it from Annheiser-Busch.
Why would the same not be true for marijuana if it were taxed & regulated like alcohol? “
I think it's unlikely that family members or retail outlets will be able to supply demand. You already see politicians pushing to outlaw fast food joints and liquor stores in the inner city. Can you imagine how Louis Farrakhan would rail against the “white devils” who brought the scourge of addiction to the ghetto out in the open?
What if the gangs offered drugs at a lower price, that they could more easily afford? What if it was more potent? What if they hired chemists to develop new types that the legal stores didn't even have? Remember that a conservative knows, unlike his misguided “progressive” brother, that people react to new laws, and not always in the way the government wants.
“What is your evidence that addiction would increase if drugs were taxed and regulated like alcohol?”
Just about every study I've heard of, and common sense, tells me there would be more addicts. Let me ask you, if speed limits were eliminated would the number of people speeding increase or stay the same?
Regardless, my argument is political, not medical. Whole groups of leftists are dedicated to the proposition that the failings of an individual are the responsibility of someone else. Right now drug addicts are law breakers, but they would not be if drugs are legal. Now, how can you be so heartless as to allow Big Pharma to destroy the lives of the underclass like that? After all, women and minorities are the hardest hit! If the cold, uncaring hypocritical so called “Christian Right” is going to throw them to the wolves, then the least we can do is provide a modest safety net. And of course the families of those who OD’d can file suit for wrongful death.
Do you see what I mean? I believe prostitution should be legalized, but I will admit that doing so would not eliminate streetwalkers, nor end sexual slavery, nor stop child trafficking for that purpose. As for drugs, am I am open, but people must think through all aspects of legalization and look beyond the obvious.