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1. The majority of street gangs are financed almost entirely by selling narcotics on the black market. A black market we created by criminalizing the drug trade in the first place. Reversing these well intentioned but devastatingly flawed drug laws will bring drug sales into a regulated legal marketplace. Criminals will no longer be involved in the drug trade when it no longer offers them a profit margin which will in turn weaken street gangs. Over time legalizing and regulating the drug trade will reverse the establishment of gangs as a normal part of our society.
2. Drugs are very inexpensive to produce yet on the black market their price includes a super high risk premium. This often forces the most severely addicted people to commit other crimes to get the money they need to feed their addiction. Even though the most severely addicted and most visible drug users (the ones in the alleys – the stereotypical addict) account for a very small percentage of the drug market they cause a disproportional amount of drug prohibition caused crime in our neighborhoods causing further cost to the non drug using tax payer.
3. Even though drug prices are hyper inflated on the black market compared to their cost to produce drug prices are falling while quality increases. Today drugs are more affordable than ever and more potent which is an economic indication that supply is high and the markets demand is being met by skilled manufacturers. This is a really good indicator that we are losing the war on drugs BIG TIME. Ending drug prohibition would usher in a system of production and distribution controls designed to keep price and quality under control.
4. Our drug laws are creating a lack of trust in law enforcement. This is best evidenced by the fact that the word narc is considered a bad word in almost all circles. Nobody wants to be called a narc. In my view nobody should have to avoid law enforcement contact because they use marijuana or have a hard drug addiction. Yet our current laws force people to hide their addiction and avoid police contact – this is clearly not what we intended when we passed our drug laws. Police should be viewed as a positive by people, due to drug laws they often are not.
5. Our drug laws are a leading cause of police and political corruption. The profits to be made in the drug trade are very enticing. Police and public leaders are as susceptible to greed as anyone else. We’re all human. Add to that, if a cop or politician feels like they or their family may be threatened by a criminal organization they will probably do whatever they are told to do just to stay alive. This corruption is caused by the illegal drug trade taking place on the black market that we created when we made drugs illegal.
6. Environmental damage is being caused by unregulated drug manufacturing. We’ve all seen the news stories about drug labs and pot farms that are throwing dangerous chemicals into our lakes, streams and other wilderness areas. What those news stories often neglect to mention is that all of this damage could be stopped if we regulated and monitored the production of these drugs. It’s the illegal black market production of these drugs that leads to the dangerous dumping. By monitoring the production we’d also be able to ensure quality and purity making the use of these drugs less deadly for the addict.
7. We finance terrorists and other enemies by outlawing drugs. This one is simple – we outlaw drugs, we outlaw the production of drugs, our enemies grow drugs, our enemies ship us drugs, we buy the drugs, we use the drugs, we get addicted to drugs, we fill our prisons with drug users, we have less money to fight our enemies and the drugs, our enemies make billions off the drugs. This cycle ends immediately upon ending drug prohibition.
8. Money that could be used to treat addicts gets spent chasing drug dealers and making them face justice. So instead of focusing our efforts on helping addicts we focus our resources on the punishment of dealers. You can see this by the abhorent lack of drug treatment facilities and addiction specialists compared to the number of drug cops, drug lawyers, drug courts, prisons guards, prisons, etc. The status quo will continue to harm addicts caught in the middle of the never ending cat and mouse game between gangs and cops.
9. Kids have greater access to drugs now then they did before drug prohibition. Ask any high school kid in any city if they could find drugs if they wanted them, and would it be easier than getting alcohol? You’ll get a resounding YES, YES. This is an epic failure for drug prohibition and should be enough of a reason to end it NOW.
10. Our current drug laws ignore the effectiveness of Government anti-smoking messages on cigarette packaging. If, with each and every purchase of a narcotic, the user was forced to stare the reality of drug abuse in the face through horrific images and scary text we might start to see some return on our drug use prevention tax dollars. Unfortunately, until we change our laws we will never be able to do this because the Government does not control drug distribution, and thus drug packaging – gangsters do. That’s why drugs are sold in clear zip lock baggies or flaps of white paper with cute characters drawn on them – with no health warnings to be seen.
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