As Lewis Carroll’s walrus observed, the time has come, not to speak of many things, but to recognize that the “war” on drugs is the world’s longest, costliest, long lost, and, most significantly, useless attempt to regulate society’s values. The useless part stems from the clear reality that Drug Trafficking – the most pernicious of the two separate and distinct drug problems that plague the world – could be stopped cold overnight – that’s right, stopped cold, overnight – by the stroke of a legislative pen – legalization!
Repeal of alcohol prohibition laws and the strict control of the distribution of alcohol beverages eliminated the violence, corruption, gang-warfare of rum running overnight. After all, rum runners – and drug traffickers – are in it for the vast profits being funneled to criminals. No profit, no rum running. The same applies to drugs, all drugs. Strictly controlled availability of drugs – clean, safely manufactured drugs, would eliminate drug trafficking overnight.
True, legalization would not eliminate addiction overnight. But with trafficking stopped, some of the billions of dollars now spent [ read, wasted ] world-wide to interdict couriers and uncover, prosecute, and jail traffickers could be spent addressing the medical/psychological problems of addiction in the cool, quiet of clinics and labs, rather than the back alleys of Mexico.
The States of Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana. Missouri is thinking about it, so are the nations of Uraguay, Chile, and Mexico. You can bet anything you can think of that there will be no more trafficking in illegal marijuana, not when good, clean, lower priced – legal manufacturers charge less than smuggling traffickers for marijuana products that will be available in licensed dealerships.
But – and here’s the really stupid part – the smuggling, violence, corruption, and crime of trafficking will go on because other drugs are still illegal. Those other drugs will still be diluted and cut in dirty, hidden labs, smuggled in swallowed condoms, furniture legs, you name it, sold at exorbitant prices, with vast profits going to fills and be eaten by rats in rooms and cellars of drug barons.
Of course, some who are reading this are cringing at the thought of legalized drugs, what it will do to society, our youth. Get real! It’s already doing that to our addicted youths. And more than half a century of intense and incredibly costly attempts to eradicate the desire of addicts to get high
have bee totally wasted, unsuccessful, useless, have, in fact, spawned a vast, international network of drug trafficking that continues to kill traffickers and private citizens alike. The pathetic recent death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman can attest to that.
Traffickers are aggressive, greedy predators. Addicts are psychologically dependent people who want to drop out, get high, be left alone with the white dream. Legalization will eliminate the traffickers – overnight! The addicts will still be in their same, corners they now are, shooting up – but they can be treated as medical problems – which they are – rather than criminals, to fill up our jails, run states out of funds sending under-cover agents running in circles, trying to keep water from running downhill.
Legalization is inevitable! Let it come. Regulate drugs as alcohol. Not sold to anyone under 21, can’t be used by people who drive cars, planes, etc. etc. If you want to know how this can be done, think of alcohol, how is it regulated? And if you want to know if legalization will be effective, think of this. There hasn’t been a machine gunning of a rum runner in almost a century, nor a prosecution for trafficking in bath-tub gin in the same period. Are there alcoholics? Sure. But they don’t fill half our jails, occupy half our police efforts. No, they seek medical help for their addiction.
As the baby boomers who populate the upper echelons of society, in business, politics, CEOs, heads of governments, retire, replaced by young people whose college roommates, even themselves, have had contact with drugs, all drugs, not necessarily only marijuana, take over the reins of state and business, the odious aura surrounding drugs, the smoke of horrible iniquity is clearing the air, letting reason, not panic morality, take over., Marijuana is on the march toward regulation and the elimination of pot traffickers. All other drug traffickers, your time has come!!!