skyd171
16p13 comments posted · 0 followers · following 0
15 years ago @ no third solution - Legalize ALL Drugs · 0 replies · +1 points
15 years ago @ no third solution - Legalize ALL Drugs · 0 replies · +1 points
Data also shows that if you legalize a drug, dealers may begin to more aggressively import their products, and push them harder via commercialization. Why would we risk enduring such scenarios? The track record of legalization is not solid enough to provide good reason to end prohibition. It is better to spend a mere 20 billion dollars or so yearly to fight the drug war, than to have our drug-related healthcare costs spike in a few years due to the increased usage that will occur, and has been shown to occur under legalization regimes. Our economy is already buckling under the high cost for healthcare, why would we risk adding to its financial stress, risking true collapse? If we want to preserve our healthcare system and economy, our society must be one that shuns the use of drugs and combats their use to the utmost extent.
15 years ago @ no third solution - Legalize ALL Drugs · 0 replies · +1 points
15 years ago @ no third solution - Legalize ALL Drugs · 0 replies · +1 points
15 years ago @ no third solution - Legalize ALL Drugs · 0 replies · +1 points
Police do not fight the drug war to stop dealers from selling, they fight the drug war because people should not use drugs which harm their bodies; we all have to pay for their use through increased healthcare costs, social, and family costs. Society would be better off if we did not have the thousands of drug and alcohol induced deaths that occur each year. Legalizing drugs would not reduce these deaths, it would increase them by making it more acceptable to use drugs. This is evidenced by observational data. Your theories of inelasticity do not hold in real world examples. You can continue to cite a theory, but if it does not hold in real life, it is a poor theory. Your theory is poor.
15 years ago @ no third solution - Legalize ALL Drugs · 0 replies · +1 points
Jeffrey Miron, a legalization proponent who cites Warburton, doesnt even have these data in his analysis of prohibition.
However he does have data charts which depict, as I stated before, a decline in cirrhosis rates during the prohibition years. This decline remained steady during the prohibition years. rates of cirrhosis did not increase until after prohibition was repealed. It took them a long steady climb to return to previous levels. This is fact and it is demonstrated by the data.
Ergo alcohol related deaths decreased and, by making an educated guess, we can infer that consumption must have decreased as well.
frankly, your argument that prohibition should be repealed because people still have access to drugs exposes itself to as much ridicule as an assertion that DUI laws should be repealed because there are still drunk drivers.
15 years ago @ no third solution - Legalize ALL Drugs · 0 replies · +1 points
What is to say he would be limited to $1000 per year? if drugs are legalized, that person will be able to buy more heroin as the market price goes down. When he is out of money, he will go back to crime to finance the habit again. this cycle will not be ended by legalization.
in addition, the article i posted showed proof that legalization experiments resulted in increased usage. The idea of elasticity, while being nice in a classroom setting, is not always applicable to real life scenarios. If usage is increased, then we can expect to see a rise in healthcare costs associated with drug abuse. It is a lose lose situation. the fact is, society would be better off if drugs didnt exist. regardless of what people say about marijuana, it does have side effects, and recent medical data show its impact on the brain, and short term memory, as well as its addictive potential. It decreases productivity among other things. people consider marijuana harmless even though one puff has been measured to have the same amount of tar as 4 puffs on a cigarette (filtered or not i cant remember).
society as a whole has to pay because of healthcare costs associated with caring for junkies, not to mention cigarette and alcohol users.
before you retort, i want to see hard evidence behind your statments.
The only evidence you've had so far is rhetoric. PS spain and italy have legalized heroin and now have the highest usage rates around the world. officials are now starting to try to rollback the legalization laws.
The example of spain and italy (only two places to legalize the drugs) is real world evidence that your idealistic vision did not pan out the times it was tried. Someone else had the same theory as you and it failed.
15 years ago @ no third solution - Legalize ALL Drugs · 2 replies · +1 points
prohibition is much more strongly enforced today, with a more accountable police force.
15 years ago @ no third solution - Legalize ALL Drugs · 1 reply · +1 points
"Currently, there are far more drug users who are pushed to criminality (i.e., robbery, etc) than there are drug dealers, and it's the users who are committing the crimes, predominately because they can't afford the drugs otherwise. "
your use of hyperbole confuses the amount of magnitude you assign to these problems . but the main point is that prohibition in the 20s was much less weakly enforced by an extremely corrupt police force than exists now. you will be hard pressed to describe any drug dealing organization that has co-opted law enforcement and politics to the extent of the 20s 30s mafia under Al Capone et al. Corruption now is much less widespread and less visible and more punished. and as i stated, if cirrhosis rates decreased during prohibition, surely it can be posited that alcohol usage declined as well. since actual usage rates are not available, this is the best evidence we have, and it gives credence to the assertion that usage decreased.
prohibition certainly reduced consumption of alcohol, the main point of dissenters is that it was ineffective at removing consumption. and as i stated, this was largely due to a corrupt and co-opted legal system, political system, and law enforcement agency to extents that do not exist by todays standards. It is time for the alcohol prohibition argument to be thrown out.
15 years ago @ no third solution - Legalize ALL Drugs · 0 replies · +1 points