| I have to disagree with your big assumptions: 1. " I guess we all agree that drugs are obviously bad for society as a whole." I don't think drugs are good or bad for society. There are positives and negatives. I do think that our drug policy is bad for society, though. 2. "Drugs enable misery, poverty, overdoses and homicides" a. ... "enable misery": or they reduce pain and misery (medical applications of many things (pot, cocaine derivations, opiate derivations, mdma/shroom derivations for depression/ptsd/etc). b. ... "poverty" I don't think they enable poverty. i would say that addiction does so, which can be a result of drug use. but not all users are addicts, and not all of the 'drug' class substances are addicting. Addition to legal substances have the same issues of emptying wallets (tabbacco, alcohol, pills). c. ... "overdoses". this is almost totally a result of the world's drug policies and the requirement of using a black market to get the drugs. If the purity and dosing information were provided with the drugs, the number would likely go in line with overdose numbers for legal substances. We also wouldn't have people taking spiked/doctored/cut/etc drugs in the same numbers -- remove the black market and you remove black market problems d. ... "homicides". again this is 100% a black market/drug policy issue. The numbers will go in line with normal legal substances once the black market is removed. New issues may pop up (mainly because the existing market is so heavily managed by crime organizations), but those new issues will be better than the current issues, and they will be solvable, unlike the current black market issues (there is demand, so a black market will exist). 3. " they enable lower social economical classes into thinking that selling drugs is a viable and alternative" -- entirely due to the black market (created by the current drug policy). 4. "It also encourages illegal immigration." - what? how? why? maybe a few migrants agree (or are forced) to transport drugs when they cross, but that's not why the people are migrating illegally. 5. "arresting drug dealers on every corner ... disrupt the supply" -- how is arresting a dealer going to damage the supply. The supply is already done when it gets to the dealer (at least the supply into the country, perhaps not the supply to the consumer, but lack of supply does not produce lack of demand). And because there is demand, they will just find new dealers. ... this is basically the entire war on drugs. The fact that you are complaining about this as not having been done or been effective 50 years in is more proof that it has failed. |