Fund Poverty Alleviation and Tax-Cuts by Legalizing Drugs

[Scott]

If you haven't already, check out my recent blog post: Poverty and the Expensive War on Drugs

What do you think? Would you rather have tax-dollars put towards alleviating poverty instead of a war on drugs?

Wouldn't it make more sense to fund education for poor kids than to spend the money chasing down pot-smokers and throwing them in jail?

Wouldn't it make more sense to legalize drugs and heavily tax the drugs as a way to fund poverty alleviation and income tax cuts?

All drugs should be legal, yes. What a person consumes is between them and their body, far be it for a government to decide what's best for us.

All drugs should be legal, yes. What a person consumes is between them and their body, far be it for a government to decide what's best for us.

I agree with this statement. The government should not be able to regulate what people consume.

Drug use is a personal choice of the individual, and where used with moderation is completely harmless.

The prohibition of drugs is a very recent development, and it has failed to work. THe main results of drug prohibition seem to be the means by which massive criminal organisations are funded. In Mexico this has led to the death of tens of thousands of people as they fight for control of the drugs trade. Far from stopping or even diminishing the use of drugs, drugs have gained a forbidden cache amonsgt mainly uneducated minorities, and drug use seems always to be competing with the previous generation for the accolade of all time high use.

Careful and moderate use amongst those more aware of the dangers, continues undiminished. For the average well paid white person the chances of prosecution for using are very limited indeed, so prolific is the occasional use, except for very rare instances where professionals get busted and loose jobs where illegal drug use is professionally unacceptable (doctors, dentists, teachers). Sadly drug laws tend to be used to victimise racial minorities whose widespread criminalisation re-inforces racist views ghettoising coloured communities to such a degree that poverty and degradation becomes self-fullfiling. Entire neighbourhoods have become no-go areas where drug barons rule - no police can tread. Mexico is overrun and in a state of crisis.

There is another alternative. Maybe the government should not be such a nanny. Maybe we would be better off controlling the import of drugs; taxing them, and where money is now fruitlessly spend on the policing of the prohibition of drugs the money should be re-diracted towards education on the effects and dangers of drugs so as to encourage moderate use.

Reduction in the use of tobacco has made great strides and now the world's greatest drug is in decline in the West where education and discouragement has been in place.

To end the war on drugs at the federal level someone or group would have to outspend the combined might of the big pharma lobbyists, the alcohol lobbies, timber industry, burgeoning private prison industry (partially funded by Well's Fargo) and the combined internal interests of the CIA, the ATF, the DEA and who knows what other agencies.

So it seems most critical thinkers are on the same page here. This is bad, its getting more and more obvious that we are in a class struggle. The drug war is a tool being used by one group to drain and weaken another group and its leading to potential trouble for everyone.

What to think now is how to move people to political action and how to engage this issue in the public policy realm.

To end the war on drugs at the federal level someone or group would have to outspend the combined might of the big pharma lobbyists, the alcohol lobbies, timber industry, burgeoning private prison industry (partially funded by Well's Fargo) and the combined internal interests of the CIA, the ATF, the DEA and who knows what other agencies.

So it seems most critical thinkers are on the same page here. This is bad, its getting more and more obvious that we are in a class struggle. The drug war is a tool being used by one group to drain and weaken another group and its leading to potential trouble for everyone.

What to think now is how to move people to political action and how to engage this issue in the public policy realm.

It seems to me that the situation is worse that that. I do not think the so-called "war on drugs" is a meaningful concept. Like the 'war on terror' you cannot fight against a NOUN. Drugs will always exist and so there will always be something to fight.

The combined security forces concerned with the 'war on drugs' have no incentive to win. All of them depend for their livelihood on the illegal trade and import of drugs every bit as much as the Drugs Barons. Winning would put them out of work.