CA can vote to smoke all the dope they want. It still violates Fed law. They Feds can withhold Fed payments to an already bankrupt CA - see where this is going?
Good luck
Yeah, it’s called bullshit. So much for the people deciding on what they want and state’s rights.
Yeah, laws making meth illegal definitely kept her clean… :rolleyes:
No one is saying controlled substances are good for you. But all current laws have done is drive the drug trade underground, where massive untaxable profits fuel violence and the rise of criminal gangs. There is simply no physical way to shut off the demand or supply valves, so the only thing that makes any sense whatsoever is to bring the drug trade into the light, then regulate and tax it.
It costs the state of CA $47,000/yr to house and feed a single inmate. How many of those inmates are in for drug violations? For violence attached to the illegal drug trade? The numbers are both staggering and senseless.
It should also be noted that legal alcohol, produced in the open and heavily taxed and regulated, is responsible for massive social costs. How many people are killed by drunk drivers every year? How much do we as a society pay in costs related to those who abuse alcohol? (A tiny minority of all alcohol users) Think about it: How much of your car insurance premium is the result of some drunk careening into people on the highway?
Often in these debates alcohol prohibition gets brought up as an example of a failed policy and legalization is discussed as if it made problems disappear. It doesn’t. It replaces one set of problems with another set of problems.
The question becomes which set of problems is preferable.
While I am against the principle of backing down, I question how alcohol can be legal and pot is illegal. I dont smoke pot, nor would I if it became legal, but intoxicated is intoxicated. It seems as if we spend more money hunting down cheech and chong when police might be better served doing something other than nailing Johnny in the park with a joint.
In most jurisdictions just being caught with a joint is a fairly minor infraction. The cops in my area, for example, aren’t busting people with one joint. They’re trying to bust the people who left 2,000 pounds of Mexican icky in a trailer that ended up at a blade company. (Presumably by accident) They are trying to bust the MS-13ers, Crips, and various other criminal enterprises that have franchised in my area.
MS-13, for example, doesn’t just deal in drugs. They also deal in firearms, coyote services, and, best of all, 11 year old sex slaves to service members of the local immigrant population who apparently like them young.
Because way back when the government had enough sense to say “this isn’t worth it”, and legalized alcohol again (while taxing it).
Now the war on drugs is used as a subsidy for LE, and all kinds of laws are passed in the name of the WOD like asset forfeiture (without charges).
I also find it striking it took a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol yet the banned drugs just by passing a law.
WOD = complete failure, and has fueled more crime than just about any other single thing out there. Now its being morphed into a gun crime issue putting the blame on our gun laws. Gov always needs a boogeyman to point the finger at while they take away our freedoms with the other hand.
Driving and texting is not illegal, yet studies show your level of impairment when doing this is about the same as driving legally intoxicated. How about eating and driving? Putting on makeup and driving? There are lots of ways to impair a driver, with tragic consequences.
There is a huge social cost simply because we have automobiles and very loose standards for who is allowed behind the wheel.
The Constitution meant a lot more during that period of time.
It takes money to make money, as the saying goes. Over the past few decades, the drug trade has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into a worldwide parallel illegal economy, providing plenty of seed capital for reprehensible “businesses” that also feed this parallel economy.
Finally. Thank you john. People dont realize while MJ by itself might be ok( not really) but its the smoke to the fire.I’d much rather deal with drunks then tweakers and iceheads.
Make everything legal in Hawaii. All the retards can move there.
Your point is major fail. just stop now
“It’s not a war on drugs, it’s a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times.” - Bill Hicks
Although I personally do not use cannabis, I am all for the legalization of it. Legalize it, tax it, stop wasting billions of dollars of public safety money enforcing a failed prohibition of the substance.
Why? I’m pretty sure this isn’t a “stay in your lane” type of discussion, so I’d appreciate your reasoning behind invalidating my statement.
It’s not a good comparison, that’s why.
We already deal with them, and decades of the WOD hasn’t slowed anything down. Billions upon billions poured into this, and what are the results? Mexico is in nothing short of a drug war, people still use drugs, violence is spilling over the border into the southern states, we’ve had our liberties stripped in the name of combating drugs, etc.
You really think if we legalized drugs that tons of people are going to decide to start? That drugs being illegal is whats really keeping people at bay?
When alcohol was legalized the majority of the black market went away. There are still people up in the hills making their own but its not an issue anymore. No more organized crime groups battling each other in the streets over alcohol sales. Now drugs are illegal, and organized crime is doing the same thing as what happened when alcohol was illegal. A legal free market could easily under-cut the cartels, and we could actually get tax revenue off those sales instead of pumping billions into a useless WOD, and causing crimes rates to go up.
There is a lot of psychology behind why people do things when they are told not to do them or its illegal. People get an extra rush doing something they are not supposed to do.
Does it make any sense that you have to deal with tweakers and iceheads, even though drugs are illegal?
Or are you saying that we would get a flood of new drug users if we ended the WOD? This is the same argument gun control advocates used over the last 20 years as “shall issue” concealed carry laws spread across the country like a prairie fire: more guns, more gun violence, more deaths. As you probably know, it hasn’t happened. Or how about “let’s outlaw all guns, and that will end gun violence?”
I have no desire to use drugs. No one I know has a desire to use drugs. Those that have the desire will find and use drugs whether they are legal or illegal. Keeping drugs illegal feeds a growing global conflagration. Making drugs legal instantly devalues the illegal drug trade and pushes billions of dollars into the real economy.
Yes, there will always be social and economic problems associated with controlled substances, but it is infinitely more productive to attack a problem you can see and manage, vs one that is hidden away in the shadows. This extends to control, treatment, taxation, regulation, education, enforcement… you name it.
So driving while distracted has no social cost? Remember that is the context in which my original point was made.
If weed is a gateway drug, any more than alcohol, aspirin, or Advil, it’s simply because you have to go to the dope man to get it. Of course he is going to try and sell you other stuff, and in some cases he’s going to succeed. He’d do the same thing if you had to go to him to buy Busch Light. The whole gateway thing has always been a terribly weak argument.