Legalizing drugs is one of the most pressing policies that our country needs to adopt, primarily because of what it'll do to dealers and the black market. Currently the we're waging an expensive, unwinnable war against gangs and cartels, who are powerful only because of the black market. Once we start treating drugs as a medical/social issue instead of a criminal one, prices and crime will drastically fall.
Or it won't, because while weed is a lucrative line of business for the Mexi cartels, it isn't the only one, and there is zero chance we're going to legalize heroin.
there is zero chance we're going to legalize heroin
I agree, although it's necessary that we legalize them all.
If we just legalize marijuana and not cocaine or heroin, we'll be opening an even bigger problem with the cartels, who would then have to push harder drugs on school children in order to make the same money that they're currently making from the marijuana black market.
The point is that drugs are a horrible reality, but legalizing them is by far the lesser of two evils. We could take the money we're currently wasting on the war on drugs and put it towards programs to prevent and help addiction.
Please... no one "pushes" drugs, it's a completely demand driven market. With illegal drugs demand ALWAYS outstrips supply and the consumers find and "pull" the dealers, not the other way around.
who would then have to push harder drugs on school children in order to make the same money that they're currently making from the marijuana black market.
What? School children aren't the largest base of recreational drugs. Cartels aren't in the business of dealing on street level, let alone to children.
Thats also not the way drugs work, they aren't substitute goods and marijuana isn't a "gateway drug" as shown by statistics.
I'm sure you get the spirit of that statement, but if not, it's not really about the actual idea of some sort of natural progression but rather that because you have to seek out an illegal source for it, you're more likely to come into contact with sources of other illegal drugs, and therefore more likely to try them as well.
We can talk about this all day, but even if I agreed with you, it's completely irrelevant. The policy issue in this article, and in 2010, is the legalization of marijuana. If the benefits your comment suggests aren't going to be realized with the legalization of marijuana, then we aren't getting them.
In not one of the top 40 economies of the world, including the Netherlands, have narcotics been legalized.
In not one of the top 40 economies of the world, including the Netherlands, have narcotics been legalized.
Not true. Portugal, "in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine."
You are arguing entirely for the sake of arguing, because Portugal didn't legalize cocaine, heroin, and meth; it legalized personal possession. You will still go to prison if you open a heroin store in Lisbon.
The cocaine market is larger than both of them (in dollars) and I believe the dominant component of the current cartel operations. Legalizing marijuana will likely have a negligible effect on the Mexican drug cartels.
The primary point wasn't really to reduce the number of addicts, but to manage their addiction and prevent them having to become muggers, hookers or burglars to feed their habit, dying from badly adulterated drug supplies and contracting diseases from bad practices. And, relevant to this article and thread, putting the money earned from these illegal activities straight into the black market for drugs.
Despite the horror stories and wild hysteria people can function and hold down jobs while dealing with heroin addiction just like alcoholics can.
But still, I've never heard of methadone programs increasing the number of addicts (unless you count the ones that don't die as a result of the intervention). What's the causal link and how do you separate out addicts that would have become addicts anyway? Because if you didn't already have an addiction problem you wouldn't realy need the methadone program in the first place. So some actual science would need to be done to get a clear answer.
My question is what happens to people who have already been jailed for possession or possession with intent to distribute and the like? Do they just get set free? Would there be lawsuits if so? It's a tough situation.
IANAL, but unless the hypothetical law legalizing these drugs contains clauses detailed what should happen to them, nothing will change for them. After all, even if it is decriminalized, what they did was a crime at the time they did it and they have already been sentenced. Without legislation specifically changing that, those sentences were correct at the time and would simply stand as is.
