Posted on 03/05/2006 2:49:43 PM PST by freedom44
Cocaine, marijuana, heroin and LSD - all of these drugs are illegal to possess, produce or traffic in the United States of America. Yet, tobacco, alcohol and various other over the counter drugs are legal in the United States. Why, I ask?
I do not understand why certain drugs are illegal in America, and why other drugs that are just as dangerous and addictive are legally and socially accepted. This country currently spends tens of billions of dollars each year trying to prevent drugs from entering the country. At the same time, billions of dollars are spent on advertisements promoting the use of other controlled substances.
Does anybody else see a flaw in the current system? Who are the people who decide what is a "good" drug and what is a "bad" drug? I believe the war on drugs has failed and that we should decriminalize all drugs. I do not understand why adults, in the privacy of their own homes, cannot put whatever substance they want into their bodies.
There are many positive effects that would come about if we legalized the possession and use of narcotics and various other illegal drugs.
First off, the prison populations would decrease greatly. Prisons are currently overcrowded because of the high percentage of inmates that are incarcerated on drug-related offenses. Many of these drug law offenders are in prison because of nonviolent possession offenses. Are these offenders that dangerous to society?
Besides having less people currently in prison, there are many other economic rewards for the legalization of drugs. The federal government would be able to tax and regulate the sale of legalized drugs, increasing tax revenues.
In addition, this would allow police departments around the country to be able to focus on malicious crimes instead of drug-related offenses. This would produce more efficient policing departments, and could perhaps prevent more non-drug related crime. Although the economic advantages of legalizing drugs are important, the social advantages are even greater.
The legalization of drugs would make drug use a health problem instead of a criminal problem. Drug users would be able to freely seek help and rehabilitation, without fearing legal implications.Rehabilitation, instead of imprisonment, would not only help current drug users with their actual drug habit, but also wash some of the stigmate away from drug use. No longer would a drug user be forced to hide his habit from his friends and family. Drug users could use their social networks to help them quit their habits, instead of hiding the problem for fear of rejection.
The poor neighborhoods of the city would also be radically changed if all drugs were legalized. A serious problem with most poor inner-city neighborhoods is drug-related crime and street gangs. Most street gangs are based on the trafficking of illegal drugs. With the legalization of drugs, many street gangs would cease to exist. Without the street gangs and drug dealers littering the neighborhood, the inner-city areas would be a radically different place.
Not only has the illegal-drug trade destroyed inner city areas around the United States, entire countries have been ruined because of it. The United States is by far the biggest market in the illegal-drug trade, and for our market to be supplied, there are various producer countries around the globe.
For example, Columbia's entire economy is based on the drug trade with the United States. Because of this, Columbia has one of the lowest Gross Domestic Products in the world. Columbia is also controlled by drug cartels that we have indirectly created because of the drug laws in the United States.
All of the reasons above are examples of the damage that the criminalization of drugs creates. The problems of our drug laws far outweigh the advantages the criminalization of drugs creates.
Some drug makers have a better lobby.
That, and the fact that attempts were made in the 1920s to ban alcohol, and failed. Prohibition.
Cocaine and heroine on the same level as alcohol and tobacco?
Tell you what, I'll drink three beers a night for the next month. We'll let the author do three lines of coke per night, and let's see who's in better shape.
Libertarians do themselves in with the pure ridiculousness of their arguments. So pure to an ideology that they let the obvious get in the way. There are some good arguments made in here, and I think, particularly with the nutritional supplement industry and the advertising of pharmaceutical drugs, that our politicians are sticking their noses where they don't belong.
That said, cocaine and heroine have no reason to be available for consumption.
Prohibition actually cut down on the consumption of alcohol. Problem is that it just created whole criminal enterprises for some dodgy, risk-taking entrepreneurs.
"I do not understand why certain drugs are illegal in America, and why other drugs that are just as dangerous and addictive are legally and socially accepted."
Huh?
Maybe your brain has been damaged by some "harmless drug".
For starters, the American people don't want substances like heroin, cocaine and marijuana made legal. And if anyone thinks alcohol is more addictive then heroin and cocaine and marijuana, I've got a bridge to sell them in Brooklyn.
"Tell you what, I'll drink three beers a night for the next month. We'll let the author do three lines of coke per night, and let's see who's in better shape." So is that the criterion by which we decide public policy? If you believedoing something will cause someone to be in poorer shape than you are? Ought we then have laws, perhaps designed by you, telling people what they may eat so they don't get fat, or otherwise out of shape? Or maybe you want to require everyone to exercise daily so they will be in the same good physical shape you undoubtedly are. Do let us know.
Plus prohibition made the Kennedy family rich. They didn't get caught and Capone did. The rest is history.
It certainly cut down the number of people who were using it harmlessly. But freedom-loving people shouldn't consider that a useful objective. There were still plenty of problems caused by alcohol consumption during prohibition; a shift from predictably-formulated drinks like beer to more variably-formulated variants of gin may have made these worse.
The fWO(s)D needs to be ended immediately. Along with the DEA and BATF. I bet you we could balance the budget really quick if those things were done.
It's only a matter of time before they repeat the failed prohibition experiment with tobacco.
Same whine, different day, from an unknown publication.
Alcohol kills, too - but take a moment and see the dreadful result of prohibition in the 1920's. Like cocaine nowadays, people could still drink alchohol if they wanted to.
The black market enriches criminals, crooked police, and corrupt politicians.
There are certain vices that people will partake in no matter how illegal it may be - the organised criminals take advantage of this.
America learned from the drive-by shootings and mafia wars of Prohibition, and repealed the 18th Amendment, realizing that it's worth it to have some people choose to overdo legal drugs, in order to take the profit away from the Mafia.
The current corruption makes the 1920's criminals look like a bunch of Girl Scouts at a picnic.
And if you think marijuana is *more* addictive than alcohol, you can keep your bridge and take it back to Oz with you.
Prior to the laws against cocaine, how many people partook of it in pure form, and how many people instead ingested it in things like beverages and such?
Outside of D.W. Griffith's For His Son, which was produced after Coca Cola had already switched to caffeine, how much evidence is there of people's lives being destroyed by cocaine when it was available in a five-cent drink?
Maybe your analogy would be more fair if instead of three beers you downed three fifths of whiskey.
More whining about the "war on drugs" from the "medicinal Marijuana" pothead crowd. They've been spewing this EXACT same rant for 40 years. Make drugs legal. Tax the drugs and then use the tax dollars to pay the increased medical costs caused by the increase in drug usage. Makes sense to me. Doctors instead of lawyers would be buying the BMWs, Ferraris and Swiss chalets.
Even at the height of Prohibition, the government would never have *dared* enact today's asset forfeiture laws.
That's progress for ya.
Alcohol prohibition was designed to fail. It had loopholes like legal possession, and medical prescriptions.
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