[toothless]

"Now I know that the chief believes in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but it scares me when a drug warrior wearing a badge and a gun stands up at a public meeting and says that the document that makes us Americans causes him problems."

[corkoman]

The WOD also offers a wealth of opportunities for lots Freepers to reveal their totalitarian leanings. They shout liberty but whisper "off with their heads".

[Ranger Drew]

It goes even deeper than that. Legalizing current illegal drugs would take the profit out of it. The money. If that were the case, two thirds of our current government leaders would have to find something else to enrich them and their puppet agencies. By god,...this is NOT what the founders had in mind at all.

Things have gotten so terribly skewed,...I don't know if they can ever get back to constitutional leadership and law.

[AnalogReigns]

There are 2 problems caused by illegal drugs: 1)Addiction, 2)Criminal enterprise.

Since cocaine is apparently at least 5 TIMES as valuable as GOLD.... there is NO WAY the trade, illegal as it is, will be stopped, or even controlled. Since the risks inherrent in a black market push the prices WAY, WAY up....legalization is seen as a way to remove the profit motive--making it as valuable as say, tobbacco...and therefore making it unattractive for organized crime. Yes there are cigarette smugglers (due to some states' super high taxation) but its small time, and not the Mafia--they go for the high profit things--drugs.

The fear of course is that addiction and drug abuse will go up...when drugs are available without a black market anywhwere. In countries which have done legalization however, that is just not the case....addiction will spike a little, after the change, and then go back to what it was before... yet the killings and terrible CRIME associated with the TRADE is gone.

We need to believe in the American character more....that the laws about drugs that were in effect under Washington or Lincoln(i.e. none) won't make more drug fiends--just less crime, without those huge profits to be made.

Which is the worst social problem, drug abuse of individuals, or the drug trade? In my oppinion there's really no comparison, clearly the wholesale murder of individuals--and destruction of whole families, neighbrohoods (even countries....see Latin America) due to the crime involved in the TRADE, is far worse than a few junkies choosing to destroy no one but themselves.