Time to Use Nuclear Option in "War on Drugs"?

Before I read the article, I thought: "Are they gonna nuke the producers or the consumers?"

But no, the 'nuclear option' is to just give up completely and legalise everything. I'm not so sure that's a good idea. For one, we'd need better drug testing methods for roadside sobriety tests - I would hope driving under the influence of any drug would still be illegal, no matter what drugs cold be consumed legally in the comfort of your own home.

But, there's no question outlawing certain drugs simply enriches the bad guys. It drives up the price, encourages large-scale production and smuggling, and introduces violence.

I would suggest legalising only marijuana would be better. If the people who wanted to could grow a few small plants for their own use, that would remove much of the criminal element. Very few people are going to produce their own cocaine or heroin, and they might just be satisfied with marijuana. Before you go saying 'But that'll lead them to harder drugs!', many studies have shown that's not true. The real 'gateway drug' is alcohol. We already tried making that illegal, and it didn't work out so well. Prohibition created quite a few family fortunes though, many of which are still active in society today. Like, as the article points out, the Kennedys.

 

i wonder what a world of legal drugs would look like. imagine a store with the drug of your choice for sale? i imagine that would go for pharmaceuticals too.

 

I wonder that too, every time I see a drug ad. Would 'dope commercials' be a cultural phenomenon like beer commercials are? Would we see thousands of different shapes, sizes and colours of opium bottles, as manufacturers tried to differentiate their products? Would 'drug tasting' be a popular tourist activity, like it is now with wineries? Would there be a 'Marlboro Man' of cocaine? Would Coca Cola go back to its original recipe?

I see not how strange the world would be, but how strange it already is.

 

No need to wonder. Just go back to the US in the late 1800's. Pretty much everything was legal - and some was in your Coca Cola. Pot wasn't illegal and was actually packaged in cigarette packs on into the prohibition era in the south. I collect cigarette packs and have been looking for any of these (empty, of course.)

 

The major obstacle to this would be opposition from the profitable businesses and enterprises built around recreational drugs being illegal.

Correctional officers and their unions
Government run prison officials
Private prison corporations
Government prosecutors
Defense attorneys
Law enforcement personnel
The illegal drug business itself

Also the alcoholic beverage industry because they don't want the competition.

 

lol the only reason they're wanting to legalise it all is so they can TAX it!

 

There only a little overlap between that set of tossers and the tossers that make a living off of the illegal drug industry now. You could look at it as power grab by one government/private business faction against another government/private business faction.

 

i don't mind a new revenue stream, i'm just not excited about 16 year olds going into the drug emporium for their weekend fun and telling the proprietor they 'left their wallet in the car' like i used to do when trying to purchase a case of beer.

 

As to taxes and yougsters, that is always going to be a problem. Right now, they just need to know someone, and they can get it without conning the proprietor of the local drug emporium.

Legalization would make the cost of the drugs come way down, so the revenue stream on these would probably end up equivalent to the stream from beer and cigarettes.

As to the other arguments, the cost to society, in dollars, deaths and mayhem would eliminated.

Not that I am a drug user, since it is illegal. But I could see this being a good thing in some respects. Not all drugs should be legalized, but perhaps prescribed to grandfather in the current addicts.

 

the problem with the alcohol comparison is that it was legal and popular before prohibition. although drugs were somewhat legal at some point in time, they have never been popular like alcohol. discounting the common ones like marjuana. and even that only became somewhat popular in the 60's.

 

The hypocrisy of jailing the sellers but giving the consumers a (relative) free pass dooms the attempt to cut off the trade.

 

Just like the war on almost everything else, the War on Drugs was doomed because of the ignorance of the people who created the war, it has become the status quo, think you can fix something, which you can't, create a money eating and spending war of ideology.

 

I'm late to this thread and had a completely different concept of the "nuclear option" on drugs....

Have special forces contaminate illicit drugs with lethal bio-weapons.

Before too long, word gets out using drugs on the black market is Russian Roulette.

 

They aren't as ignorant as they might appear to be. If their objective was to build fiefdoms and make money, then they have been very successful.

Prisons, private and government
Law enforcement
Correctional officers
Prosecutors
Defense attorneys
etc
etc

There are countless government agencys, private businesses, unions and individual sharing the billion and billions of dollars being urinated away on the drug war.

 

That sort of evil, nefarious plot has already been tried. Paraquat was used by Americans on Mexican marijuana crops in the 70s. It backfired in several ways, though. Not only was it proven ineffective as a poison for the users (though there's still some question about its role in causing Parkinson's Disease), fears of contaminated crops spurred people to grow their own. We all read in the news every day how popular and successful that has become.

 

After posting, the thought of unintended consequences came to mind - most obvious of which who might be killed.

Anyway, something this dracoian is what popped to mind with "nuclear"

 

It was only meant to achieve spending, therefore it failed in what ideology it was supposed to do, because it was never intended to end the use of drugs, just to cause spending.

 

Does that include Singapore?