Posted on 01/15/2009 8:32:09 AM PST by Ericka81
he cause of criminal violence is not drugs or alcohol but rather criminals. To believe otherwise is to expect every drug dealer in America to give up and apply for a job at McDonald’s or WalMart the day legalization occurs. Every society contains a sizable element whose members refuse to make an honest living under any circumstances. The legalization of drugs will not change this large-scale reality of human behavior.
For now, many societal malefactors have the option of selling or trafficking drugs. But their real trade is to profit from the unwillingness of others to take the risks involved in illegal activity. Think of drug legalization, then, as a new government regulation on the drug dealer. It removes the illegality, and therefore much of the profit, from his trade. Experience suggests that such changes in government policy motivate economic actors to find loopholes. For the drug dealer or supplier, that means finding some new illegal activity through which to cash in on one’s tolerance for the risks of crime.
(Excerpt) Read more at culture11.com ...
Why not? Alcohol is available at A & P. Alcohol is more destructive to the body than weed.
And, btw, weed can be grown in Kentucky and St. Louis.Sulu.
‘Weed’ should be legal to sell anywhere alcohol and/or tobacco is. If A&P wants to sell it, it’s up to them. Processed products with medical uses should be sold in pharmacies.
Any ‘weed’ worth anything is grown right here in the USA. The same places where liquor is made such as Kentucky and Tennessee. Mexican dirt weed would be completely worthless if it was legalized.
The trade wouldn’t be run by street thugs any more than the alcohol and tobacco trade is run by criminals. Nobody would buy anything from criminals if they can buy a better, cheaper and safer product legally and feel safe doing it.
Just legalizing pot would deprive these major drug trafficking organizations of most of their income. According to our government marijuana sales Americans accounts for about 62% of the money these Mexican drug trafficking organizations gross from drugs. Their net income form marijuana is probably a good bit higher percentage of their net income from drugs in general because they actually produce the pot. They sell about $8.6 billion worth of pot to Americans and only about $3.9 billion worth of cocaine, the second most widely used illegal drug, but they are only the middlemen for the cocaine. It’s produced in South America. The Mexicans now control most cocaine distribution in the United States but they have to purchase it in South America, get it smuggled to Mexico and then smuggle it here. All of this has to increase their costs, as does the fact that American law enforcement really seem to focus on the hard stuff mostly and they seize an awful lot of it. They seize more marijuana, but more marijuana is consumed in this country than all other illegal drugs combined so there is a whole lot more of it out there to be seized. For these Mexican drug trafficking organizations, marijuana is their cash cow. It’s how they derive most of their income. Take most of their income from them and we’ll see a corresponding decrease in the number of people involved with the illegal drug trade and the death toll. These organizations will be smaller, less powerful, and easier for governments to contain.
Actually, to some extent it did happen. There were so many people involved with the black market for alcohol during Prohibition and after Prohibition ended most of them did not move on to other criminal enterprises. The full time gangsters stayed with it, but most involved weren't Al Capone types. They were fairly regular people who were involved because the opportunity presented itself. Most of us probably have an ancestor or great uncle or something who ran liquor, helped smuggle it, acted as a look out, cooked it up in the woods, etc. My grandfather and his brother had a still in the woods and after Prohibition he worked as a carpenter (which he was doing even when he was a moonshiner) and eventually became a contractor and built houses and whole subdivisions for a living. A lot of booze runners went on to drive for NASCAR. Most of the people involved went off and didn't continue with a their "life of crime." Organized crime didn't go away, but they shrunk down considerably from what they were in the heyday of Prohibition.
why would it still need to go thru dealers? legalise it and package and tax it like cigarettes.
well because it ain’t like booze or smokes. it’s more of a drug. i just think that allowing anyone 18 or over to buy as much weed as they wish would be a horrible idea. dealers would buy it and still sell it to the fiends on the block who could not buy an entire pack.
That didn't happen with booze after prohibition ended.
Booze and smokes are drugs. You don’t even know why you’re opposed to legalization.
Live long and prosper.
You’re right. It’s not like booze and smokes.
It’s no more addictive than freerepublic, all natural and has medical properties.
The only problems I know people have from ‘weed’ is trouble with dealers and the law. All caused by prohibition.
geeze, advil is a drug. do you think weed and camel lights are comparable?
From reading your post, it sounds like advil should be the only legal drug. Geeze!
i originally said that weed is "more of a drug" than booze or smokes. then you basically compared them all by saying that booze and smokes are drugs. which i had already stated. i just said weed was MORE of a drug than booze or smokes.
look. advil, booze and smokes are easily accessible. my only point is that weed should not be as accessible. that's it.
So now keeping pot illegal is necessary so drug dealers will not lose their jobs. Got it.
Comparable? Not even close
Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs known to man and is known to alter a user’s brain chemistry toward lifetime addiction. Cigs are one of the leading causes of illness in the world.
Advil can kill or cause liver damage over time. Especially when combined with alcohol. Overdosing on advil is easy and leads to an excruciating death.
I’d like you to show me a single death by illness or overdose caused by ‘weed’.
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