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 dwpineal
Psychedelic Artist
Registered: 07/20/06
Posts: 4,443
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 Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? 
#16079332 - 04/12/12 11:25 AM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/should-the-us-legalize-hard-drugs/2012/04/11/gIQAX95QBT_story.html
Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs?
Amelioration of today’s drug problem requires Americans to understand the significance of the 80-20 ratio. Twenty percent of American drinkers consume 80 percent of the alcohol sold here. The same 80-20 split obtains among users of illicit drugs.
About 3 million people — less than 1 percent of America’s population — consume 80 percent of illegal hard drugs. Drug-trafficking organizations can be most efficiently injured by changing the behavior of the 20 percent of heavy users, and we are learning how to do so. Reducing consumption by the 80 percent of casual users will not substantially reduce the northward flow of drugs or the southward flow of money.
Consider current policy concerning the only addictive intoxicant currently available as a consumer good — alcohol. America’s alcohol industry, which is as dependent on the 20 percent of heavy drinkers as they are on alcohol, markets its products aggressively and effectively. Because marketing can drive consumption, America’s distillers, brewers and vintners spend $6 billion on advertising and promoting their products. Americans’ experience with marketing’s power inclines them to favor prohibition and enforcement over legalization and marketing of drugs.
But this choice has consequences: More Americans are imprisoned for drug offenses or drug-related probation and parole violations than for property crimes. And although America spends five times more jailing drug dealers than it did 30 years ago, the prices of cocaine and heroin are 80 to 90 percent lower than 30 years ago.
In “Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know,” policy analysts Mark Kleiman, Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken argue that imprisoning low-ranking street-corner dealers is pointless: A $200 transaction can cost society $100,000 for a three-year sentence. And imprisoning large numbers of dealers produces an army of people who, emerging from prison with blighted employment prospects, can only deal drugs. Which is why, although a few years ago Washington, D.C., dealers earned an average of $30 an hour, today they earn less than the federal minimum wage ($7.25).
Dealers, a.k.a. “pushers,” have almost nothing to do with initiating drug use by future addicts; almost every user starts when given drugs by a friend, sibling or acquaintance. There is a staggering disparity between the trivial sums earned by dealers who connect the cartels to the cartels’ customers and the huge sums trying to slow the flow of drugs to those street-level dealers. Kleiman, Caulkins and Hawken say that, in developed nations, cocaine sells for about $3,000 per ounce — almost twice the price of gold. And the supply of cocaine, unlike that of gold, can be cheaply and quickly expanded. But in the countries where cocaine and heroin are produced, they sell for about 1 percent of their retail price in the United States. If cocaine were legalized, a $2,000 kilogram could be FedExed from Colombia for less than $50 and sold profitably here for a small markup from its price in Colombia, and a $5 rock of crack might cost 25 cents. Criminalization drives the cost of the smuggled kilogram in the United States up to $20,000. But then it retails for more than $100,000.
People used to believe enforcement could raise prices but doubted that higher prices would decrease consumption. Now they know consumption declines as prices rise but wonder whether enforcement can substantially affect prices.
Kleiman, Caulkins and Hawken urge rethinking the drug-control triad of enforcement, prevention and treatment because we have been much too optimistic about all three.
And cartels have oceans of money for corrupting enforcement because drugs are so cheap to produce and easy to renew. So it is not unreasonable to consider modifying a policy that gives hundreds of billions of dollars a year to violent organized crime.
Marijuana probably provides less than 25 percent of the cartels’ revenue. Legalizing it would take perhaps $10 billion from some bad and violent people, but the cartels would still make much more money from cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines than they would lose from marijuana legalization.
Sixteen states and the District have legalized “medical marijuana,” a messy, mendacious semi-legalization that breeds cynicism regarding law. In 1990, 24 percent of Americans supported full legalization. Today, 50 percent do. In 2010, in California, where one-eighth of Americans live, 46 percent of voters supported legalization, and some opponents were marijuana growers who like the profits they make from prohibition of their product.
Would the public health problems resulting from legalization be a price worth paying for injuring the cartels and reducing the costs of enforcement? We probably are going to find out.
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 smily
lookin 4 my ass wit both handz
Registered: 07/13/06
Posts: 2,500
Loc: Lee HO FooKs
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: dwpineal]
#16079462 - 04/12/12 12:01 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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OrgoneConclusion
Rico Suave
Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 35,350
Loc: Candyland
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: dwpineal]
#16079625 - 04/12/12 12:37 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Would the public health problems resulting from legalization be a price worth paying
The simple answer: when all drugs were legal not a single society imploded.
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Symbols
§✪λⓡɕＨⒶŠƎƦ
Registered: 03/13/12
Posts: 688
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"Hard drugs" sets the argument before it even begins.
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HybridprX
Biodegrader of coir
Registered: 01/29/08
Posts: 2,237
Loc: Canada 
Last seen: 18 days, 17 hours
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: Symbols]
#16079817 - 04/12/12 01:16 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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If legalizing "hard drugs" to help ease addicts with withdrawls while going through treatments is what it takes, im all for it.
Anything to stop the violence....I dont care if the cartels kill each other, good riddance. But when those sub-human p.o.s shoot innocent men, women and children pffft.... I really hope there is a hell for them to go to when their time comes.
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Nullface
Registered: 09/04/11
Posts: 4,555
Loc: USA 
Last seen: 33 minutes, 20 seconds
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: HybridprX]
#16079912 - 04/12/12 01:36 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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"About 3 million people — less than 1 percent of America’s population — consume 80 percent of illegal hard drugs. "
Where do they get these numbers? The number of people with felonies from possession of said drugs?
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Nullface
Registered: 09/04/11
Posts: 4,555
Loc: USA
Last seen: 33 minutes, 20 seconds
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: Nullface]
#16079952 - 04/12/12 01:45 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Those comments are awful. Nothing but a bunch of misinformed idiots making biased and false statements about everything they can. I guess D.A.R.E. did work after all.
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Enlil
LIL-9000
Registered: 08/16/03
Posts: 11,430
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Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:
Would the public health problems resulting from legalization be a price worth paying
The simple answer: when all drugs were legal not a single society imploded.
Really? The roman empire isn't still around, is it?
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Ask a defense attorney
Fuck the Amish
Rail_Gun said, "And those kids in CT deserved to die and I'm glad they're dead. I am glad that the survivors will have to "live with it" too. hahaha"
Listerine said, "i want genocide for most of africa"
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werDehT
Offset
Registered: 12/15/11
Posts: 707
Loc: Over the cuckoo's nest
Last seen: 4 months, 26 days
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: Enlil]
#16080279 - 04/12/12 03:03 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Enlil said:
Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:
Would the public health problems resulting from legalization be a price worth paying
The simple answer: when all drugs were legal not a single society imploded.
Really? The roman empire isn't still around, is it?
You picked the longest lasting society in human history as a rebuttal? Haha. I don't remember drugs being their downfall either, then again I did go to public schools...
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"It's only after you've lost everything that your free to do anything."
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Enlil
LIL-9000
Registered: 08/16/03
Posts: 11,430
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: werDehT]
#16080286 - 04/12/12 03:04 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
werDehT said:
Quote:
Enlil said:
Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:
Would the public health problems resulting from legalization be a price worth paying
The simple answer: when all drugs were legal not a single society imploded.
Really? The roman empire isn't still around, is it?
You picked the longest lasting society in human history as a rebuttal? Haha. I don't remember drugs being their downfall either, then again I did go to public schools...
I never said it was...but it did implode...and drugs were legal...If you're going to make statements like "not a single society imploded", you should at least fact check them...
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Ask a defense attorney
Fuck the Amish
Rail_Gun said, "And those kids in CT deserved to die and I'm glad they're dead. I am glad that the survivors will have to "live with it" too. hahaha"
Listerine said, "i want genocide for most of africa"
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Nullface
Registered: 09/04/11
Posts: 4,555
Loc: USA
Last seen: 33 minutes, 20 seconds
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: Enlil]
#16080318 - 04/12/12 03:09 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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So was every form of degeneracy. Faggotry and every other form of sexual deviance was the normal along with drugs and non-stop partying/orgies. Sort of like modern day California
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Enlil
LIL-9000
Registered: 08/16/03
Posts: 11,430
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: Nullface]
#16080321 - 04/12/12 03:10 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
Nullface said:
So was every form of degeneracy. Faggotry and every other form of sexual deviance was the normal along with drugs and non-stop partying/orgies. Sort of like modern day California
lol
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Ask a defense attorney
Fuck the Amish
Rail_Gun said, "And those kids in CT deserved to die and I'm glad they're dead. I am glad that the survivors will have to "live with it" too. hahaha"
Listerine said, "i want genocide for most of africa"
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ToiletDuk
Give me Librium or give me Meth!
Registered: 05/17/03
Posts: 81,273
Loc: Earthfarm 1
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: dwpineal]
#16080840 - 04/12/12 05:13 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Excellent article by conservative pundit George Wills. He's been calling for this for a long time.
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sonamdrukpa
Wayfarer
Registered: 10/18/11
Posts: 1,791
Last seen: 30 days, 5 hours
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: dwpineal]
#16081346 - 04/12/12 07:16 PM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
dwpineal said:
People used to believe enforcement could raise prices but doubted that higher prices would decrease consumption. Now they know consumption declines as prices rise but wonder whether enforcement can substantially affect prices.
I don't get this part. The previous paragraph says legalization would drastically cut prices...so why is the fact that consumption is dependent on price a good argument for legalization?
If you want to argue that legalization would cut cartel profits, fine, but I don't think that would get rid of drug availability. Someone would step in to fill the void. Hershey's makes mad bank off of M&M's despite the fact that a pack is $1, and those aren't anywhere near as addictive as crack...
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yoimjohn
Registered: 08/13/11
Posts: 1,287
Loc: terra nova
Last seen: 7 months, 19 days
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Re: Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs? [Re: sonamdrukpa]
#16083215 - 04/13/12 02:59 AM (1 year, 1 month ago) |
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If heroin/meth were legal tomorrow Im not goingto do either, wont do either. If I wanted to do it, sure, but thats the thing. Theres this idea that the government needs to intervene and be in your life to decide for you what is right and wrong, when ultimately the decision comes down to you and your morals. The government cannot build these morals for you nor lessons which are essential. its important for a human from the very start to be taught like this. Its important that we all realize we all have the ability to do what we want regardless of the drug or situation, but with that ability comes morals and responsibility that cannot be artificially created by the government through laws, judgement, and punishment.
anyways thats my take
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