“…There are currently no revenues for the Government. It all goes to the illegal growing, manufacturing, and distribution channels…”

Ah, but Richardhg, I’m convinced there is a flaw in your statement:

There IS a revenue, but you and I will never know just what that revenue amounts to or where it is cropping up within the confines of U.S. Government. Somebody “in government” – I should say somebodies (probably “manybodies”) – is gaining from a police state mentality. There is an obvious perceived value to “somebodies” in the continued expansion of government to the extent “we” are now the greatest prison nation by far on planet earth.

What or where is the payoff for the absence of “national peace and harmony” in this political entity? Neither you nor I will ever know for certain. Why is each expansion of “Empire” accompanied by huge violations in human “rights”? Don’t ask.

ONE thing is certain: politicians may be crude…they may be criminal on down the scale…but they are NOT stupid.

The drug war will continue.

Keeping drugs illegal raises the price dramatically, which means that those involved currently in the distribution have every reason to try to make sure the laws do not change in favor of legalization. In the past, organized crime has funded the politicians and religious organizations who had a reputation for being tough on drugs to ensure that the status quo was maintained by discussing the dangers of legalization in a hysterical manner rather than addressing it in an adult manner as an administrative issue with deadly consequences.

I am not going to argue the merits of drugs. I would like to address the issue administratively from the perspective of harm reduction.

First, you cannot manage something you cannot measure. If drugs are legalized in some manner, and taxed in the distribution process, like cigarettes or alcohol, then for the first time there would be accurate figures for the known drug trade.

We already know that consistently manufactured products with brand names are much more successful in the drug market. Marlboro, Winston, Jim Beam, and Johnny Walker are some of the recognized brands that have brought an end to sales of no-name bootleg products in the tobacco and liquor markets.

We also know that these products, which are monitored by Government, are far safer for the public than the old moonshine-type equivalents.

And finally, they generate huge tax revenues for the Federal and State Governments.

One of the standards of business is breaking divisions of the company down by cost-benefit analysis. How much does the division make, and how much does it cost to run?

Currently, the illegal drug market in the US has enormous costs, both in dollars and human capital. The deaths in the distribution channel are awful.

There are currently no revenues for the Government. It all goes to the illegal growing, manufacturing, and distribution channels.

We only have to look back in American history for an exact parallel: Prohibition, which spawned organized crime. Fiorella LaGuardia, in a 1926 address to the US Senate, pointed out that approximately a billion dollars a year was lost to the Federal Government in excise taxes, and that the demand for large Federal bank bills had risen by over $300 million.

Prohibition was first introduced in the US in 1920, and despite a clear understanding of the cost to the country, and speeches from people like LaGuardia, was still not repealed until 1933, the height of the Great Depression, probably motivated more by Government revenue needs than anything else.

Do we need another Great Depression to change the current disastrous scenario? America is rapidly becoming a police state as a result of laws which are addressed in a hysterical fashion by True Believers who think they know the One True Path. The need for ever greater police repression in a country with impractical laws is underlined by all history.

I do not care about the availability of illegal drugs, because I don’t do them. But I do care about the incredible violence, the unmanaged scenario, and the exponentially rising death rates and costs of trying to contain drug distribution.