Should the US legalize drugs?
kir
2012/07/08 14:35:56
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50 votes
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63% | |||
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15 votes
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19% | |||
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15 votes
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19% | |||
Drugs have a lot of negative consequences, but so does regulating their use. We have border patrol officers being killed in the line of duty, massively powerful drug cartels, a large prison population of non violent drug offenders, and more that have been involved in drug related gang violence.
So should we just end this war on drugs or is it actually helping somehow?
So should we just end this war on drugs or is it actually helping somehow?
Read More: http://politicoid.blogspot.com/2012/07/big-busines...
How has the war on drugs helped?
I just expressed a distaste towards the taxes that will be put on them if they're legalized. .-.
This happened primarily because the people who these bans targeted continued to make, sell, and drink alcohol despite the ban. The ban didn't help the situation at all. If anything, it made the problem worse, because now the people making and selling the alcohol were throwing caution into the wind trying to keep the practice hidden and throw the police off the trail (e.g. distilling alcohol rapidly instead of taking the time and precautions, crashing their cars trying to evade police officers). Eventually, the govt. realized they were wasting resources and time with the ban, and they decided it'd be more efficient to replace the ban with regulations and taxes.
It's the same way with drugs. Instead of using up time and resources in trying to keep drugs out of the country when they're going to get in anyway, why not lift the ban and put taxes and regulations in place? The govt. will get money from the taxes the drug users pay, and they won't be burning resources in vain.
Not to mention that the streets will be safer from the lack of people resorting to backstreet businesses and other crimes to get a joint, and the drug cartels won't have as much power...
This happened primarily because the people who these bans targeted continued to make, sell, and drink alcohol despite the ban. The ban didn't help the situation at all. If anything, it made the problem worse, because now the people making and selling the alcohol were throwing caution into the wind trying to keep the practice hidden and throw the police off the trail (e.g. distilling alcohol rapidly instead of taking the time and precautions, crashing their cars trying to evade police officers). Eventually, the govt. realized they were wasting resources and time with the ban, and they decided it'd be more efficient to replace the ban with regulations and taxes.
It's the same way with drugs. Instead of using up time and resources in trying to keep drugs out of the country when they're going to get in anyway, why not lift the ban and put taxes and regulations in place? The govt. will get money from the taxes the drug users pay, and they won't be burning resources in vain.
Not to mention that the streets will be safer from the lack of people resorting to backstreet businesses and other crimes to get a joint, and the drug cartels won't have as much power because they won't be the primary sources of drugs any longer.
The HUGE numbers imprisoned for none violent offenses such as marijuana possession is approaching nearly 50% of the population being held in our prisons. More than 2.5 million are actively in prison/jail right now 1.23 million of them for non-violent drug crimes, ie possession.
At a cost of nearly $50,000 PER inmate, we are talking about $61.5 BILLION DOLLARS for just those NON violence crime prisoners.
There are far better ways to spend our tax dollars than to make Prison companies rich.