On Sun, 01 Jul 2007 05:56:28 -0700, Jay Honeck
wrote in om:

Now, of course, you can say that eliminating drugs wouldn't fix the
ghettos, and you might be right.

Eliminating the profit in producing illicit drugs would deny illegal
drug cartels an incentive to continue producing them, much the same
way repeal of the Volstead Act brought an end to the most violent
period in American history. Isn't it apparent, that the source of the
illicit drug problem is the profitable black market that sustains it.

However, eliminating drugs (and the cartel behind them) would remove
a major fuel source for much of the violence that claims so many lives
there.

The violence associated with illicit drugs is a result of the
financial battle for distribution territories and the black market's
artificial inflation of the street price, so that users are unable to
finance their habits.

And, of course, you have to look at the reciprocal of what you are
proposing. If making drugs ILLEGAL is the problem, what would making
them LEGAL do?

My guess is, that it would do about the same as repealing the Volstead
Act did: remove the inflated profit motive thus providing a
disincentive for mafia involvement, end the violence associated with
criminal production and distribution, and make room for violent
criminals in the nation's overcrowded prisons.

When I contemplate legalized drugs, I get a vision from "The Matrix",
with entire segments of our society laying around hooked up to
intravenous tubes, oblivious to everything around them.

Similar illusions were probably uttered at the thought of repealing
the prohibition against alcohol.

While the repeal of Prohibition did result in days of party binging at
certain air-themed motels and Air Venture campsites, would you
characterize that as Matrix-like?

Would providing free drugs to the inhabitants solve the violence?

Regulating "illicit" drugs, and pricing them at a free market level
would make dope peddlers income less than flipping burgers, and enable
users to purchase their drugs instead of having to commit crimes.

Even if it did, would it be the right thing to do?

Decriminalizing drug use, and seeing it for the medical concern it
truly is, seems like an enlightened step forward to me. But then, I'm
sure there are those who miss the days of hunting witches and burning
them at the stake.

In any event, restraining our government from seizing sovereignty over
the bodies of its citizens seems just.


Irrational beliefs ultimately lead to irrational acts.
-- Larry Dighera,