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After reading (and rereading) the debate in the "SWAT kills dogs" thread,I thought I would make a thread to discuss the pros and cons of legalizing drugs.
Now,even though I no longer use any drugs (with the exceptions of alcohol,caffiene & tobacco,and the occasional aspirin),I am 100% for the legalization of drugs,my reasons,for the most part ,can be found here.

http://www.bmstahoe.com/Drugs/

So,I'm very interested to know what the rest of you think,what are your oppinions concerning the merits/pitfalls of legalizing drugs?

Drugs are legal.

Why just today I bough me some acetylsalicylic acid and acetaminophen from my local Pharmacy!

Gwar! wrote:Drugs are legal.

Why just today I bough me some acetylsalicylic acid and acetaminophen from my local Pharmacy!

I stand corrected by Gwar (there's a shock) .

So let us focus on "Should ilegal drugs be made legal"?

FITZZ wrote:

Gwar! wrote:Drugs are legal.

Why just today I bough me some acetylsalicylic acid and acetaminophen from my local Pharmacy!

I stand corrected by Gwar (there's a shock) .

So let us focus on "Should ilegal drugs be made legal"?

But that isn't the thread title!!!!!!!!!!

Personally, I have no opinion either way.

That good enough?

Gwar! wrote:

FITZZ wrote:

Gwar! wrote:Drugs are legal.

Why just today I bough me some acetylsalicylic acid and acetaminophen from my local Pharmacy!

I stand corrected by Gwar (there's a shock) .

So let us focus on "Should ilegal drugs be made legal"?

But that isn't the thread title!!!!!!!!!!

Personally, I have no opinion either way.

That good enough?

Yes,your lack of opinion,while stunning,is good enough.
And I have now changed the thread title to better reflect my exact meaning.
Now,back to your bridge my friend...your goats getting cold.

I don't say this because I want to buy heroin or cocain or anything like that (beer and cigs is just fine for me) but I think it would greatly reduce crime, and social problems if they were legalized. Jails no longer stuffed over stupid posession charges, cops no longer planting evidence, dealers no longer having turf wars over who distributes where that affect innocent passersby. Organized crime would take a big financial hit if people could go buy a pack of joints just like a pack of cigarettes... less violence, less useless jail time we all pay for, and less attraction to it. It's not as if everyone would become a junkie just because heroin gets legalized any more than everyone becomes a smoker just because marlboros are legal.

On top of it all, the government could tax the hell out of drugs, and people still wouldn't complain if they could get their quarter ounce of pot for 20 bucks instead of 40ish (and it only costs a couple of bucks to produce it) It grows just like tobacco, no more expensive just let it go and set up factories to package it and sell it at a ridiculous tax rate. The only reason marijuana deals are expensive is because of the risk the dealers have to take. The only reason they are abused is because they are expensive and illegal, therefore 'lifestyle' defining.

French people allow their kids to drink wine, let them drink in public (provided they aren't incapacitated or unruly, which is an entirely different crime). France has an extremely low problem with alcoholism compared to more restrictive countries. Once it's no big deal any more, it sort of loses its 'cool' attraction to the pimp who thinks he's the gak because he brought the coke. It be like me walking into a party acting like I'm the gak because I brought chips or something. Nobody would really care, they could have got their own.

Finally, if the government is in control of it, they can regulate for quality, no more poisonous chemicals cut in with the meth and the H, no more dirty coke or low-grade pot full of brown buds and seeds and stems, no more stricknine laden acid. The FDA could have standards that would have to be met that would ensure healthier junkies.

It's like guns IMO. Make them illegal and people will still have them. Make them legal and the powers that be can tax them and track them.

Now... being a public nuissance by being 'overserved' by druggggss could be treated the same way as someone who gets too drunk and creates a nuissance. I see no difference really. If you can handle your booze, you can drink, if you can handle your crack, you can have a toke, etc. If you become a disturbance, yeah there are laws against that. People would probably become a lot more responsible with their drug intake and tolerance level.

Yep, I agree with that, my thoughts exactly

aka_tizz wrote:Yep, I agree with that, my thoughts exactly

Same here.

If it were me I'd legalise weed and let the hard drugs stay illegal..

What would all those criminals do without illegal drugs to make money from? Mafia protection?

I would probably have some sort of licensure system in place for hard drugs, like there is for firearms.

What i believe? No. keep them illegal. Weed leads to worse and more hard drugs. We need to be strict with drugs. it doesnt matter if it doesnt have sideeffect it can still mess you up in other ways.

garret wrote:What i believe? No. keep them illegal. Weed leads to worse and more hard drugs. We need to be strict with drugs. it doesnt matter if it doesnt have sideeffect it can still mess you up in other ways.

The problem with this argument is that the main reason why weed is seen as a gateway drug is because oftentimes, it has to be procured from sources that sell harder and more potent drugs, and amounts of these drugs can get mixed into the weed, either by accident or on purpose. So when the person gets high off of the pot they bought, there's a chance that they're inhaling some crack or LSD or something other than just weed as well.

Marijuana itself is not that bad at all - the biggest risk it has is that it tends to have far more tar and carcinogens than tobacco. It's one of the few illegal drugs that is not actually addictive, and if you tried to smoke the amount it would take for you to overdose from the drug, you'd be dead of suffocation long before you OD'd. I don't drink/smoke/do drugs, but I honestly think that the legality of marijuana should be changed, since it's a potentially large source of income if taxed and quality control would ensure cleaner pot on the market. Alcohol is a far larger threat than marijuana will ever be, and that's been legal since it was created (with the exception of the Prohibition, and look at how well that turned out.) Keep the harder stuff like crack and all illegal, but there's really no reason to continue to outlaw weed save for the fact that old prejudices die hard and slow.

previous poster:
(What i believe? No. keep them illegal. Weed leads to worse and more hard drugs. We need to be strict with drugs. it doesnt matter if it doesnt have sideeffect it can still mess you up in other ways.)

(sorry my html is non-existant)



weed leads to hard drugs? ohhhhkay... no. When did you crawl out of that Nancy Reagan public service announcement or After-School-Special someone stuffed in your head?

Weed leads to sitting around on your couch laughing at scoobie doo cartoons when you should be doing something constructive. "hard drugs" lead to strangers you talk to in the bathroom of a club just cuz they have drugs... and people who don't know each other just leeching off each other around in a circle paranoid that someone took a bigger hit than them.

If it was legal the paranoia would go away.

I cannot say I am proud of it but neither am I ashamed of it but I speak from experience. Try some weed and see if your first instinct is to go get heroin. Your first instinct will be to go get the TV remote or the game controller and some nachos. Speaking from experience, I will reiterate. It's a great way to waste your time and accomplish nothing, but it didn't ruin my life or make me take anything else. (I did that anyway out of curiosity, but not because smoking pot led me there). I got bored with it and not stick to beer and cigs but in those days, all it was was a way to waste time. It didn't 'Gateway Drug' me into anything. Just wasted some time and money until I realized it was kind of dumb.

The personality type that is willing to try various mind alternating substances is capable of trying whichever one comes up. You could say it starts with underage cigarette smokers, or beer->weed->coke-crack->heroin->acid or whatever but the truth is (at least from what I have seen) if you don't give a gak then you just don't give a gak, and you'll try something you are told is "BAD FOR YOU!!!" anyways, because you just don't respect the people telling you that nonsense. The reason marijuanna is called a 'gateway drug' by the afterschool special type TV propeganda is that it is the easiest illegal substance to procure. So that's the one that future crackheads probably did first, just because its around everywhere.

If drugs are illegal, then so should be starbucks, cigarettes, booze, turtlenecks, man-purses, McDonalds, and everything else that is potentially bad for you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The only time I've ever heard ANYONE care this intensely about the government getting more tax money is when it comes to legalizing weed. Hmmm.....

Guitardian wrote:Weed leads to sitting around on your couch laughing at scoobie doo cartoons

Scooby Doo, funny? That actually sounds rather frightening. I'll have to support weed's continued prohibition.

Someone has to support an industry that's target demographic is ten year olds.


gak.

I don' think it needs to be legalized but if they do tax the feth out of it. Like I'm talking 30-40%. Hippies want to walk around stoned all day let them pay out the ass for it.

Also, if it did become legal I'd hope workplaces would treat it like alcohol. You show up stoned or get stoned at work you are out the damned door.

I would legalise weed, but really only because I smoke it quite a lot, and being able to nip to the corner shop for a twenty-bag would make my life a hell of a lot easier.

I could give a gak about whether or not it would help our social situation or bring in more tax revenue for the government. Really.

Bothered.

I envision a future where a bunch of stoners sitting on their couches watching protests on TV about marijuana tax going up and toking up while saying "yeah! totally dude! they're taxing our weed unfairly!", and... not doing anything about anyways. hee hee hee

Would beat hearing all my friends who smoke cigarettes bitching every time there is a tax hike and then not even trying to quit.

I mean, don't like what you have to pay for cigs stop doing it. That's akin to shoving your hand into a band saw, losing a few fingers, bitching it hurts and then repeating said action.

INTRODUCTION
There are no panaceas in the world, but the legalization of drugs would do more than any single act or policy to eliminate many of today's socio-political afflictions. Removing legal penalties from the production, sale and use of "controlled substances" would alleviate at least a dozen of our biggest social or political problems.

With proposals for legalization finally in the public eye, there is a need for some sort of catalog that lists the benefits of legalization. For advocates, this list is an inventory of facts and arguments. For opponents, this list is a painful account of the problems that opponents may be perpetuating. The list is intended both as a resource for participants in the legalization debate and as a starting point for wishful participants who lack facts.

Are we ready to stop wringing our hands and start solving problems?

1. Legalizing drugs would make our streets and homes safer.

As Jeffrey Rogers Hummel states in Heroin: The Shocking Story," April 1988 --- estimates vary widely for the proportion of violent/property crime related to drugs. Forty percent is a midpoint or measure of central tendency. In an October 1987 survey by Wharton Econometrics for the U.S. Customs Service, the 739 police chiefs responding blamed drugs for 1/5 of murders and rapes, 1/4 of car thefts, 2/5 of robberies and assaults and 1/2 of the nation's burglaries and thefts." The numbers are much greater today at the end of the century. History repeats itself and we are re-learning the devastation of 1920's Prohibition today. Drugs are products, like alcohol in the '20s, that people want and will ignore the authorities to obtain. Nothing will stop the desire for any product that people want.

The theoretical and statistical correlations between drugs and crime are well established. In a 2 1/2-year study of Detroit crime, Lester P. Silverman, former associate director of the National Academy of Sciences' Assembly of Behavior and Social Sciences, found that a 10 percent increase in the price of heroin alone "produced an increase of 3.1 percent total property crimes in poor nonwhite neighborhoods." Armed robbery jumped 6.4 percent and simple assault by 5.6 percent throughout the city.

The reasons are not difficult to understand. When law enforcement restricts the supply of drugs, the price of drugs rises. In 1984, a kilogram of cocaine worth $4000 in Colombia sold at wholesale for $30,000, and at retail in the United States for some $300,000. At the time a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman noted, matter-of-factly, that the wholesale price doubled in six months "due to crackdowns on producers and smugglers in Columbia and the U.S." Statistics indicating the additional number of people killed or mugged in direct relation to the DEA's crackdown on cocaine are not available. The obvious point is that black markets for any desirable illegal products cannot be stopped.

For heroin, the factory-to-retail price differential is even greater. According to U.S. News & World Report, in 1985 a gram of pure heroin in Pakistan cost $5.07, but it sold for $2425 on the street in America--nearly a 500% markup.

The unhappy consequence is that crime also rises, for at least four reasons:

Addicts must shell out hundreds of times the cost of goods, so they often must turn to crime to finance their habits. The higher the price goes, the more they need to steal to buy the same amount.
At the same time, those who deal or purchase the stuff find themselves carrying extremely valuable goods, and become attractive targets for assault.
Police officers and others suspected of being informants for law enforcement quickly become targets for reprisals.
The streets become literally a battleground for "turf" among competing dealers, as control over a particular block or intersection can net thousands of additional drug dollars per day.
Conversely, if and when drugs are legalized, their price will collapse and so will the sundry drug-related motivations to commit crime. Consumers will no longer need to steal to support their habits. A packet of cocaine will be as tempting to grab from its owner as a pack of cigarettes is today. Drug dealers will be pushed out of the retail market by known drugstore retailers. When was the last time we saw employees of Rite Aid pharmacies shoot it out with Thrift Drugs for a corner storefront? When drugs become legal, we will be able to sleep in our homes and walk the streets more safely. As one letter-writer to the Philadelphia Inquirer put it, "law-abiding citizens will be able to enjoy not living in fear of assault and burglary."

2. End prison overcrowding.

Prison overcrowding is a serious and persistent problem. Studies show that the prison environment has become increasingly violent and faceless which exacerbates an already dangerous and dehumanizing environment. Prison is intended to punish "real" criminals for their crimes, however, as you will see, the overcrowding is due mostly to drug offenders.

According to the 1988 Statistical Abstract of the United States, between 1979 and 1985 the number of people in federal and state prisons and local jails grew by 57.8 %, nine times faster than the general population. Governments at all levels keep building more prisons (spending our money), but the number of new prisoners keeps outpacing the capacity to hold them. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons' 1985 Statistical Report, as of September 30, 1985, federal institutions held 35,959 prisoners --- 41% over the rated prison capacity of 25,638. State prisons were 114% of capacity in 1986.

Of 31,346 sentenced prisoners in federal institutions, drug law violators were the largest single category, 9487. A total of 4613 were in prison but not yet sentenced under various charges. Since 1985, the courts have released drug-related criminals to the street as quickly as possible to free prison space for real criminals. We get a vicious cycle of repeated drug offenses followed by release to alleviate overcrowding. Burglaries and theft would decrease by 50% if drugs were legalized because the price would decrease.

Legalizing drugs would immediately relieve the strain and burden on the prison system, since drug offenders would no longer be incarcerated. Also, since drug users would no longer commit violent/property crimes to pay artificially high prices for their habits, there would be fewer future drug-related criminals to incarcerate. Instead of building more prisons, we could pocket the savings and still be safer.

Removing the 9487 drug inmates would leave 26,472. Of those, 7200 were in for assault, burglary, larceny-theft, or robbery. If the proportion of such crimes that is related to drugs is 40 percent, without drug laws another 2900 persons would never have made it to federal prison. The inmates who remained would be left in a less cruel, degrading environment. If we repealed the drug laws, we could eventually bring the prison population down comfortably below the prison's rated capacity.

3. Drug legalization would free up police resources to fight non-drug related crimes against people and property.

The considerable police efforts now expended against drug activity and drug-related crime (1/3 to 1/2 of resources) could be redirected toward protecting innocent people from those who would still commit crime in the absence of drug laws. The police could protect us more effectively, since police could focus resources on catching rapists, murderers and the remaining perpetrators of crimes against people and property.

4. Unclog the court system.

If you are accused of a crime today, your Constitutional Right to an expeditious, fair trial is impeded by our clogged court system. Guilty or innocent, you must live with the anxiety of impending trial for a much longer period of time. The process is even more sluggish for civil proceedings.

There simply aren't enough judges to handle the skyrocketing caseload. Since drug legalization would significantly dimish crime by the eliminatation of drug and drug-related crimes, the legislation would remove tens of thousands of cases from the court dockets across the continent, enabling the remaining cases to move sooner and faster. Prosecutors would have more time to handle each case; judges could return to real law and render more thoughtful and realistic opinions.

Improved efficiency at the lower levels would have a ripple effect on higher courts. Better decisions in the lower courts would yield fewer grounds for appeals, reducing the caseloads of Appeals Courts; and in any event there would be fewer cases to review in the first place.

5. Reduce corruption of officials.

Drug-related police corruption manifests itself in two major forms. Police offer drug dealers protection in the police's precinct for a share of the profits (or demand a share under threat of exposure), and police seize a dealer's merchandise to sell themselves.

Seven current or former Philadelphia police officers were indicted May 31 on charges of falsifying records of money and drugs confiscated from dealers. During a house search, one suspect turned over $20,000 he had made from marijuana sales, but the officers gave him a receipt for $1870. Another dealer, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer, "told the grand jury he was charged with possession of five pounds of marijuana, although 11 pounds were found in his house."

In Miami, 59 officers have been fired or suspended since 1985 for suspicion of wrongdoing. The police chief and investigators expect the number eventually to approach 100. As The Palm Beach Post reported, "That would mean about 1 in 100 officers on the thousand man force will have been tainted by one form of scandal or another."

Most of the 59 police officers have been accused of trafficking, possessing or using illegal drugs. In the biggest single case, 17 officers allegedly participated in a ring that stole $15 million worth of cocaine from dealers "... and even traffic violators."

What distinguishes the Miami scandal is that "Police are alleged to be drug traffickers themselves, not just protectors of criminals who are engaged in illegal activities," said The Post. According to James Frye, a criminologist at American University in Washington, the gravity of the situation in Miami today is comparable to Prohibition-era Chicago in the 1920s and '30s.

The Prohibition comparison is very applicable. Also, the problem is not limited to Miami and Philadelphia. The astronomical profits from the illegal drug trade are a powerful inducement for law enforcement agents to illegally obtain a share of the huge profits. These huge profits would disappear if RiteAid or Walgreens could legally sell marijuana, cocaine, and heroin for the same price as a designer antibiotic.

Legalizing drugs would eliminate the dollar incentive to corruption and enable police to clean up their image. The elimination of drug-related corruption cases would further reduce the strain on the courts, freeing judges and investigators to handle other cases more thoroughly and expeditiously.

6. Legalization would save tax money.

Efforts to interdict the drug traffic alone cost $6.2 billion in 1986, according to Wharton Econometrics of Bala Cynwyd, Pa. If we add the cost of trying and incarcerating users, traffickers, and those who commit crime to pay for their drugs, the tab runs well above $10 billion annually. Don't forget --- these are mid-1980 dollars. The cost has grown by a factor of 10 times or more in the 1990s. The crisis in inmate housing would disappear, saving taxpayers the expense of building more prisons in the future.

Savings would be redirected toward better police protection and speedier judicial service. Or savings could be refunded to the taxpayers in the form of a tax cut. Or the federal portion of the costs could pay down the budget deficit, national debt, and Social Security/Medicare costs. Or use the savings to renovate old schools or build new schools where children could be taught not to use drugs. For a change, it's a happy problem to ponder. But it takes legalization to make it possible.

7. Legalized drugs would cripple organized crime.

The Mafia (heroin), Jamaican gangs (crack), and the Medellin Cartel (cocaine) stand to lose billions in drug profits from legalization. On a per-capita basis, members of organized crime, particularly at the top, stand to lose the most from legalizing the drug trade.

The underworld became big business in the United States when alcohol was prohibited. Few others would risk setting up the illegal distribution networks, bribing officials or killing a policeman or competitor once in a while. When alcohol was re-legalized, reputable manufacturers resumed production. The risk and the high profits disappeared from the alcohol trade. Even if organized crime wanted to keep control over alcohol, the gangsters could not have targeted every manufacturer and every beer store. Customers preferred good alcohol over rot-gut and poison. The profits from illegal alcohol were minuscule compared to the dollars generated from today's illegal drugs. These dollars are the underworld's last great source of illegal income--dwarfing anything to be made from gambling, prostitution and any other vice.

Legalizing drugs would eliminate this huge income source from under organized crime. Smugglers and pushers would have to go legitimate or go out of business. There simply wouldn't be enough other criminal endeavors to employ them all. Drug users would buy from reputable manufacturers at a much lower price. A user's habit could be supported with honest work because high drug prices would be eliminated. Drugs that kill and blind people would disappear. Users of legal drugs would have the right to their day in court, if a drug manufacturer is negligent. No such rights exist today.

If we are concerned about the influence of organized crime on government, industry and our own personal safety, we could strike no single more damaging blow against today's gangsters than to legalize drugs.

8. Legal drugs would be safer. Legalization is a consumer protection issue.

Because "controlled substances" are illegal, the drug trade today lacks many of the consumer safety features common to other markets: instruction sheets, warning labels, product quality control, manufacturer accountability. Forcing products underground makes those products, including drugs, more dangerous than if the products were manufactured by reputable firms.

Nobody denies that currently illegal drugs can be dangerous. But so can aspirin, countless other over-the-counter drugs and common household items; yet the proven hazards of matches, modeling glue and lawn mowers are not used as reasons to make them all illegal.

Practically anything can kill if used in certain ways. Like heroin, salt can make you sick or dead if you take enough of it. The point is to learn what the threshold is, and to keep below it. That many things can kill is not a reason to prohibit them all--it is a reason to learn how to handle these products and provide the desired safety instructions. The same goes for drugs. Today, there are instructions for the use of virtually every product, and recourse through the courts for damages caused by any product including drugs.

Today's drug consumer literally doesn't know what he's buying. The stuff is so valuable that sellers have an incentive to "cut" (dilute) the product with foreign substances that look like the real thing. Most street heroin is only 3 to 6 percent pure; street cocaine, 10 to 15 percent. Since purity varies greatly, consumers can never be really sure how much to take to produce the desired effects. If one is accustomed to 3 percent heroin and takes a 5 percent dose, suddenly you've nearly doubled your intake. Reputable drug manufacturers offering drugs on the open market are driven by different incentives than pushers. They rely on name-brand recognition to build market share, and on customer loyalty to maintain it. There would be a powerful incentive to provide a product of uniform quality: killing customers or losing them to competitors is not a proven way to success. Today, dealers can make so much from a single sale that there is no incentive to cultivate a clientele. In fact, police make it imperative to make the sale fast and move on --- hell with the customers.

Pushers don't provide labels or instructions, let alone mailing addresses. The illegal nature of the business makes such things unnecessary or dangerous to the enterprise. After legalization, pharmaceutical companies could safely try to win each other's customers, and guard against liability suits with better information and more reliable products.

Even pure heroin on the open market would be safer than today's impure drugs. As long as customers know what they're getting and what it does, they can adjust their dosages to obtain the intended effect safely. INFORMATION is the best protection against the potential hazards of drugs or any other product. Legalizing drugs would promote consumer health and safety.

9. Legalization would slow the spread of AIDS and other diseases.

As D.R. Blackmon notes ("Moral Deaths," June 1988), drug prohibition has helped propagate AIDS among intravenous drug users.

Because intravenous drug users inject heroin and other narcotics with hypodermic needles, access to needles is restricted. The shortage of needles causes users to share needles. If one IV user has infected blood and some enters the needle as it is pulled out, the next user may shoot the infectious agent directly into his own bloodstream.

Before the AIDS epidemic, this process was already known to spread other diseases, principally hepatitis B. Legalizing drugs would eliminate the motivation to restrict the sale of hypodermic needles. With needles cheap and freely available, the drug users would have little need to share them and risk acquiring someone else's virus.

Despite the pain and mess involved, injection became popular because, as The Washington Times put it, "that's the way to get the biggest, longest high for the money." Inexpensive, legal heroin, on the other hand, would enable customers to get the same effect (using a greater amount) from more hygienic methods such as smoking or swallowing--cutting further into the use of needles and further slowing the spread of AIDS.

10. Legalization would halt the erosion of other civil liberties.

Hundreds of government agencies and corporations have used the alleged cost of illegal drugs as an excuse to test their employees for drug usage. Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Walker (he was defeated) embarked on a crusade to withhold federal money from any company or government agency that didn't guarantee a "drug-free workplace". This is a Don Quixote crusade.

The federal government has pressured foreign countries to grant access to bank records so it can check for "laundered" drug money. Because drug dealers handle lots of cash, domestic banks are now required to report cash deposits over $10,000 to the Internal Revenue Service for evidence of illicit profit.

The drugs and drug profits that led to the abrogation of civil liberties would disappear with drug legalization. Before drugs became big business, investors could put their money in secure banks abroad without fear of harassment. Mom and pop stores could deposit their cash receipts undaunted that they may appear like criminals.

Nobody tests urine for levels of sugar or caffeine as a requirement for employment or grounds for dismissal. However, if caffeine were declared illegal it would certainly become a lot riskier to use, and hence a possible target for testing "for the sake of our employees". Legalizing today's illegal drugs, which weren't illegal before 1913, would make them safer and deflate the drive to test for drug use.

11. Legalization would stabilize foreign countries and make them safer for residents and travelers.

The connection between drug traffickers and guerrilla groups is fairly well documented (see "One More Reason," August 1987). South American revolutionaries have developed a symbiotic relationship with coca growers and smugglers: the guerrillas protect the growers and smugglers in exchange for cash to finance their subversive activities. In Peru, competing guerrilla groups, the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru, fight for the lucrative right to represent coca farmers and drug traffickers.

Traffickers themselves are well prepared to defend their crops against intruding government forces. A Peruvian military helicopter was destroyed with bazooka fire in March, 1987, and 23 police officers were killed. The following June, drug dealers attacked a camp of national guardsmen in Venezuela, killing 13.

In Colombia, scores of police officers, more than 20 judges, two newspaper editors, the attorney general and the justice minister have been killed in that country's war against cocaine traffickers. Two supreme court justices, including the court president, have resigned following death threats. The Palace of Justice was sacked in 1985 as guerrillas destroyed the records of dozens of drug dealers.

"This looks like Beirut," said the mayor of Medellin, Colombia, after a bomb ripped apart a city block where the reputed head of the Medellin Cartel lives. It "is a warning of where the madness of the violence that afflicts us can bring us."

Legalizing the international drug trade would effect organized crime and subversion abroad much as it would in the United States. A major source for guerrilla funding would disappear. So would the motive for kidnapping or assassinating officials and private individuals. As in the United States, ordinary Colombians and Peruvians once again could walk the streets and travel the roads without fear of drug-related violence. Countries would no longer be paralyzed by smugglers.

12. Legalization would repair U.S. relations with other countries and curtail anti-American sentiment around the world.

When Honduran authorities spirited away alleged drug lord Juan Matta Ballesteros and had him extradited to the United States in April, Hondurans rioted in the streets and demonstrated for days at the U.S. embassy in Tegucigulpa.
The action violated Honduras's constitution, which prohibits extradition. Regardless of what Matta may have done, many Hondurans viewed the episode as a flagrant violation of their little country's laws, just to satisfy the wishes of the Colossus of the North.

When the U.S. government, in July 1986, sent Army troops and helicopters to raid cocaine factories in Bolivia, Bolivians were outraged. The constitution "has been trampled," said the president of Bolivia's House of Representatives. The country's constitution requires congressional approval for any foreign military presence.
One thousand coca growers marched through the capital, La Paz, chanting "Death to the United States" and "Up with Coca" last May in protest over a U.S.-sponsored bill to prohibit most coca production. In late June, 5000 angry farmers overran a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration jungle base, demanding the 40 American soldiers and drug agents leave immediately.
U.S. pressure on foreign governments to fight their domestic drug industries has clearly reinforced the image of America as an imperialist bully, blithely indifferent to the concerns of other peoples. To Bolivian coca farmers, the U.S. government is not a beacon of freedom, but a threat to their livelihoods. To many Hondurans it seems that their government will ignore its own constitution on request from Uncle Sam. Leftists exploit such episodes to fan nationalistic sentiment to promote their agendas.

Legalizing the drug trade would remove some of the reasons to hate America and deprive local politicians of the chance to exploit their citizens. The U.S. would have a new opportunity to repair its reputation in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

I believe and our Constitution specifies that the federal government must provide for the common defense. I believe the US should vigorously and overwhelmingly defend itself overseas for any and all military infractions against the US, but this drug war cannot be won. People will do what they want to do whether they live in the US or the USSR.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
That,by and large is the content of the link I posted.
I know it's a great deal to read,but would urge you all to read it.
I belive some excelent points are made.

Amen.

Holy wall of text Batman.

Don't suppose anyone feels like summarising that?

Weed leads to sitting around on your couch laughing at scoobie doo cartoons when you should be doing something constructive. "hard drugs" lead to strangers you talk to in the bathroom of a club just cuz they have drugs... and people who don't know each other just leeching off each other around in a circle paranoid that someone took a bigger hit than them.

Yeah, exactly what it does for me. Its ironic since shaggy looks like a total flakking pothead.

------------------------

Anyways, yes, it should be legal. Weed should be 'course.

Honestly, if we legalized them and commercialized them, it would make huge bucks for the government, and everybody would be happy.

There would be an age limit (18 or older I'm guessing) and it wouldn't be bad anymore.

Kids wouldn't get involved anymore since it would be harder to get a hold of, it would be an industry.

It would reduce crime, make things like those poor corgi's never get shot, and take so many people of out jail for stupidass crimes like weed possession.

We live in a free country, we should be able to feth up our lives to the fullest if we wish. That is not what weed does, as I am an avid user, and honestly, it has never gotten me into trouble (unless I go outside....)

Pot isn't bad. It's just as bad as cig's, which really don't start affecting you 'till your quite old.

Alcohol has worse affects on you than weed, and that's legal. And you saw what happened when he illegalized that during the prohibition years in the 1920's. That is what is happening right now.

I have a feeling it will be legalized eventually with all of this medical weed being handed out nowadays. I'll just chill and lol at scooby doo 'till then. Oh, and plasticrack.

Alcohol may have worst long term effects (and that's debatable since even doctors say that a glass of wine (ONE glass, not an entire bottle) is good for you but I still challenge anyone to tell me it's immediate effects are worst than weed.

I can go a drink a single pint of Guiness, get into my car and drive like a always do. If I was to smoke an entire joint I'd be fethed up, driving fethed up, talking fethed up and acting fethed up and would get into an accident.

Like I said, legalized marijuana should cost an arm and a leg. Take the average street value of it, double it and then tax it on top of that.

That would surely just encourage people to sell weed illegally, cheaper.

Not necessarily. Cigarettes double in price when PresBO took office and I've not heard or seen any more reports of cigarettes being smuggled in and sold cheaper on the black market.

That and if you honestly think that the administration wouldn't take advantage of the potheads in the country to make money off them by milking legalized weed as high as they can means you have way more faith in the system than I do.

I honestly wish they'd increase the liquor tax. 9.5% in Mn should honestly double. Might cut down on the problems associated with alcohol.

The Dreadnote wrote:Don't suppose anyone feels like summarising that?

That about sums it up!

I say do it. Oh also, have a Detox clinic in each major city. Just so that we can actually help the people.