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Posted on 10/22/2011 1:39:00 PM PDT by 4buttons
70 minute VIDEO- Former President of Mexico Vincente Fox speaks on ending the drug war.
(Excerpt) Read more at cato.org ...
Regarding Marijuana, some simple economics:
Since MJ is a weed, it is as easy to grow as a tomato. So, domestic production would cripple foreign SMUGGLERS & the price of MJ would drop like a rock.
Current prices for MJ range from $300-$800 per ounce, or more. Dealing can be very lucrative. But, If someone can grow a pound or 2 (16-32 ounces) on their terrace in pots with a dollar packet of seeds & some MiracleGro, then pot becomes essentially free, putting the pot DEALERS & GROWERS out of business.
That is 3 major US criminal enterprises completely out of business. Permanently & almost immediately. Thousands of big & small dealers, growers, & smugglers gone because their customers can get it for free.
If something is free, it has no commercial value, & little human appeal.
Two responses I always get when I address this:
1. The entire country will become pot heads
2. It will destroy the children
My answers:
1. Those people who prefer to smoke pot probably already are. Also, ask your friends & relatives if they would smoke pot if it were legal. Likely, if they don’t smoke it now, they wont when legal.
2. Children should not use ANY drugs w/o a doctor’s supervision. Parents must hold & take complete responsibility, with schools providing a supporting/monitoring role. Subjecting your child to the criminal justice system will NOT solve the problems that led to drug use - it will multiply them. Criminalization doesn’t work with adults either, as our bulging jails & nearly 100 year War on Drugs attest to.
“This war on burglary has taken too long, cost too many freedoms, and stopped nothing.
Legalize theft today.
/sarc”.
Unfortuate for your position, the “war” on property, personal crimes has been quite succesful. As more recidivists are kept “in” for longer terms, the streets become demonstrably safer. A lot needs to be done in gangbanger turf, BUT if the complainant can be made to feel safe from retaliation, we get more co-operation from residents and personal/property crime rates have declined significantly over ten years.
Herein lies the problem with drug laws. If I knock you upside the head and steal your Rolex and cash, you will fully cooperate with the cops trying to catch me.
Otra vez, I pay you cash to obtain X amount of an illegal substance, neither of us has any reason to cooperate with the WOD police, neither party feeling taken advantage of (well, unless I just bought $20 worth of oregano or baby laxative, but I ain’t likely to take that to civil court), neither side is inclined to uphold the law.
As another poster has pointed out, nobody puts armed guards around potato farms. Who is going to spend money to protect a crop that will be less valuable than potatoes?
Have you ever asked yourself why our Founders didn't address the legality or illegality of "recreational" drugs? Why do you think it is a priority today when it wasn't two hundred years ago?
We've been chaing killers, robbers and rapists a lot longer and they still show up. You want to declare that legal too and save all that money we spend on cops?
The "IT's For The Children!!!" is pure COW droppings.
Until you deal with a child on drugs its your opinons that are the cow droppings. Its just like a civilian telling a soldier what real combat is like.
OVER!
With drugs legalized, the Cartel's incomes would be drastically reduced. Cartels cost big money. Fighters, smugglers, crooked pols & police, etc. don't work for free. Cartels cannot survive on the remaining criminality - smuggling illegals, prostitution, & the like.
Legalization would dramatically reduce the price of street drugs. The junkie who needs to steal $500 a day to maintain his habit may only need to steal $50 a day, or nothing if given the obvious medical attention he really needs. Marijuana can be grown in a pot in Manhattan, so forget plantations in Mexico. Coca & opium have climate/soil requirements. “Kitchen-cooked” drugs can be made anywhere.
All-in-all, the cartels would be OUT of the drug business shortly after US legalization.
I do NOT favor the complete legalization of all drugs, especially “kitchen-cooked” drugs, though I do favor the decriminalization of marijuana. From youthful experience, I know it to be relatively harmless, & certainly less dangerous than alcohol or jail.
That whole post has "poor little piggy me, you civilians can't understand..." all over it.
The Sheriff on Nottingham's goons didn't want the laws against poaching the King's deer repealed, either. Notice how they didn't dare take off there armor? We've got "drug warriors" who need these drug prohibitions so they can keep thousands of jails running, hundreds of thousands of 'roided, badge heavy thugs occupied, lawyers/state senators passing more and more blatantly unconstitutional laws that gut our entire American form of government, billions of dollars pissed away on rambo toys that your kind can torture and kill us civilians with, hundreds of thousands of lives ruined.
No sale. A republican form of government REQUIRES personal responsibility. Drug laws, and the horror show your thinking has created in their defense has come edgingly close to destroying our civilization. And YOU think it's mandatory, "if it saves ONE life..." This is the wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong conditions. There are 330 million people in this country. I'm willing to expend a few hundred thousand weak willed drugged Democrats every year to save the rest of our freedoms.
If Dear Leader's puppet masters had a brain in their heads, they would start a "legalize pot" campaign to distract us while he finishes raping the country. And you would have to start worrying about your job.
democracy
Good point, it would be treated just like any crop.
Good point, it would be treated just like any crop.
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