S33 wrote:I'm not saying stick with status quo, I'm saying you don't legalize drugs. That's absurd on so many levels. Just the thought of all the crack zombies roaming the streets because they no longer have to hide in obscurity in the inner city ghettos because now the government has deemed their behavior acceptable.
Not quite an accurate analogy. Alcohol is legal. Drunk driving and public intoxication is not. Guns are legal. Shooting people is not. Cigarettes are legal. Smoking indoors in many places is not.
I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I would be willing to wager that the VAST VAST VAST majority of crime involved around the drug trade is due to distribution - turf wars and smuggling. You take the criminal aspect away from it to where you could buy pot at the corner 7-11 and I would argue you'd damn near eliminate gangs. Obviously, you'll still have the petty crime from people robbing said 7-11, but you have that now anyway for people that need $20 for some Thunderbird.
I think the trick is to get crack and meth renamed something catchy like Ambien or Xanax, market it by showing some old people running around in a field in slow motion, and then have the pharmaceutical companies lobby the FDA to make it legal. Because as long as mind altering substances can be taxed and controlled by corporations, we're all good with it. That way, when you get Rush Limbaugh or Brett Favre hooked on it, it takes some of the stigma away for everyone else that's abusing it.
If you want to ban every substance or item that can, might, or will be abused or used improperly by some, there's a LOOOOOOONG list of things to start a federal war against. Come to think of it, most of those things already have some kind of failed war against them already. Ask MADD how well their teetotalling campaign worked to keep minors from drinking. All they managed to do was criminalize the legal behavior of people 18-20.
Stable genius.