End the War on Drugs

Given the expense and all of the crime, death and misery associated with the war on drugs it's beyond me how we can continue doing something that has failed so miserably.
 
Policenaut said:
It all depends on how much they cost. If they cost too much for the average person then that person will resort to cheaper drugs that can be provided by gangs. Thus you still have a gang problem but now you can't bust them for drug sales.

I agree that all drugs should be made legal. I have no idea what the lasting effect will be though. More drug addicts? Less? More deaths? Less? More gangs? Less?

I think that the problem again is pricing. Drugs are cheap to make. If companies start producing drugs how will they be priced and will they be as strong as street drugs? If the answers are 'expensive' and 'not as strong' then gangs will still thrive. Also if made legal the government will want to put a tax on it making it more expensive to the users.
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I can't think of any short of taxation way an illegal product will be cheaper than if it were legal. Can you?

eta: obviously pirated software or something but not a manufactured physical product.
 
It all depends on how much they cost. If they cost too much for the average person then that person will resort to cheaper drugs that can be provided by gangs. Thus you still have a gang problem but now you can't bust them for drug sales.
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I suspect the Amish will corner the marijuana marked.
 
give peace a chance

it has always been proven to be better then war

btw this could also help lower the overall medical costs

if I have a infection why should I pay a doc to script anti-biotic
wasting both his and my time and adding expense
 
Okay, imagine if the American President was taking cocaine.

H is talking to the Premier of Russia and then all of a sudden says:

"You're a ****ing fag, man."

The nukes will be a flying.

Or of course he could be on Opium.

"Why of course Mister Russia dude, we'll give you back Alaska. No prob Bob"

"But my name is not Bob. Why would you call me a name that is not my own,"

"Oh wow man, it just ain't no thang man. Would you like Florida too?"
 
Aren't we going to be voting on this in California next year?
 
As Mencken said : "For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple--and wrong."

Legalisation, as proposed in the OP, would make drugs available to everyone. We already have enough problems with free availability of alcohol, so why compound the problem? Decrimilisation of certain drugs in certain circumstances is another matter.
 
lionking said:
Legalisation, as proposed in the OP, would make drugs available to everyone. We already have enough problems with free availability of alcohol, so why compound the problem? Decrimilisation of certain drugs in certain circumstances is another matter.
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Drugs are already available to everyone who wants them. Hell, when I was in high school, it was easier to get drugs than to get alcohol.
 
dtugg said:
Drugs are already available to everyone who wants them. Hell, when I was in high school, it was easier to get drugs than to get alcohol.
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I question this assumption. Drugs may be available to those who wish to take the risk of being caught and suffering some sort of legal sanction, but to "everyone who wants them", I don't think so, your anecdote notwithstanding.

In any case I do not believe that making all drugs available to all people is good public policy.
 
lionking said:
I question this assumption. Drugs may be available to those who wish to take the risk of being caught and suffering some sort of legal sanction, but to "everyone who wants them", I don't think so, your anecdote notwithstanding.
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The risk is very small unless you're an idiot. And either way, I've never known anybody to refrain from using drugs because they're illegal.

In any case I do not believe that making all drugs available to all people is good public policy.
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Better to leave control of the drug trade to violent gangs and cartels who will kill anybody who gets in their way?
 
dtugg said:
First you need to establish that people would use heroin or meth or crack at rates comparable to those of alcohol and tobacco if they were suddenly legal. I highly doubt this would happen, even most drug users I know won't touch that stuff because of their social stigma attached and because of the known high risk of addiction. Then you need to establish that if this happened, these drugs would kill people at at high rates.
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Well, we can't know for sure until some country tries it, but is it a coincidence that the drugs used at the highest rates are the drugs that happen to be legal?
It's an interesting question that can only be answered empirically.

If we find out that legal heroin is used at high rates comparable to alcohol and tobacco and causes more health problems and social problems than alcohol and tobacco, can the genie be put back in the bottle?

Perhaps there's a fixed number of addicts and if there's more junkies there will be correspondingly fewer alcoholics or perhaps the addicts will become dependent on multiple substances instead of just one or two. Somehow I doubt that legalizing other drugs would make the number of alcoholics or smokers decrease significantly. Maybe in the long run because more young people will choose something other than alcohol as their drug of choice, but I don't know.
 
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