Why do you think this would happen? How are drugs different from alchohol (which is a drug)? What kind of terrible consequences came from ending prohibition in the 30's?
Right, herion is extreme, but we could safely and legally bring back opium dens. Opium dens were safe and legal for centuries. Can you imagine the jobs and tax revenue that would be created?! I'm sure they'd have posh opium dens all in NYC, Miami, Atlanta, etc. If opiate addicts can simply LEGALLY go get their fix in a posh opium den I'm sure that would cut down on hard heroin use anyhow. This would also take the opiate biz out of the h ands of the cartel..
Mexico Purges 3,200 Police Officers in Anti-Corruption Drive http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...can-mayor-4-year-old-daughter-is-wounded.html
85,000 alcohol attributable deaths per year with 2.3 million years of potential life lost(about 30 years of life lost per death). Now just to compare, the murder rate in the US is about 20,000 deaths per year, so basically you are 500% more likely to die from alcohol than get murdered. Right now about 17,000 people die from illegal drug use. You can be that if it was legal, the death rate would be over 1 million per year. Heck, look at cigarrettes. They are legal and kill 455,000 per year. I think its alot easier to die from heroin or cocaine than cigarrettes, so you can be sure that if those were legal, the death toll would rocket to the millions. For those of you that argue drugs could be taxed and the government could make lots of money, that is a fallacy. People that use drugs are less productive than people who dont. Less productivity means less GDP which means less taxes collected. Look at any area in the united states where there are large groups of people that use illicit substances. Are those productive, prosperous areas? No, they are run down areas. Another downfall of legalizing drugs is that the drug users have higher health care costs as their bodies get run down faster. Whos going to pay their medical bills? The taxpayer.
Same kind of scare tactics they used when trying to keep alcohol illegal, never happened though. All this is beside the point of course, which is that it's your own life and yours to do with what you choose. If you choose to spend it as a drug addict, that's your choice. If you choose to spend it as a brainwashed religious fanatic, that's also your choice. If you choose to end it, that's also your choice. However, these are all choices individuals should make about their own lives, not government's to make choices for them. We all have the a god given right to be free to choose which path we'll take in our own lives, and the responsibility to face the outcomes of those choices.
Peil, your entire capacity for reason and logic is malfunctioning badly on this one. First off, try explaining this: _________________ http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2014332,00.html Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers, Study Finds Time.com One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don't drink actually tend to die sooner than those who do. The standard Alcoholics Anonymous explanation for this finding is that many of those who show up as abstainers in such research are actually former hard-core drunks who had already incurred health problems associated with drinking. But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that - for reasons that aren't entirely clear - abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one's risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers. Moderate drinking, which is defined as one to three drinks per day, is associated with the lowest mortality rates in alcohol studies. Moderate alcohol use (especially when the beverage of choice is red wine) is thought to improve heart health, circulation and sociability, which can be important because people who are isolated don't have as many family members and friends who can notice and help treat health problems. But why would abstaining from alcohol lead to a shorter life? It's true that those who abstain from alcohol tend to be from lower socioeconomic classes, since drinking can be expensive. And people of lower socioeconomic status have more life stressors - job and child-care worries that might not only keep them from the bottle but also cause stress-related illnesses over long periods. (They also don't get the stress-reducing benefits of a drink or two after work.) But even after controlling for nearly all imaginable variables - socioeconomic status, level of physical activity, number of close friends, quality of social support and so on - the researchers (a six-member team led by psychologist Charles Holahan of the University of Texas at Austin) found that over a 20-year period, mortality rates were highest for those who had never been drinkers, second-highest for heavy drinkers and lowest for moderate drinkers. (Watch TIME's Video "Taste Test: Beer With Extra Buzz.") The sample of those who were studied included individuals between ages 55 and 65 who had had any kind of outpatient care in the previous three years. The 1,824 participants were followed for 20 years. One drawback of the sample: a disproportionate number, 63%, were men. Just over 69% of the never-drinkers died during the 20 years, 60% of the heavy drinkers died and only 41% of moderate drinkers died. These are remarkable statistics. Even though heavy drinking is associated with higher risk for cirrhosis and several types of cancer (particularly cancers in the mouth and esophagus), heavy drinkers are less likely to die than people who have never drunk. One important reason is that alcohol lubricates so many social interactions, and social interactions are vital for maintaining mental and physical health. As I pointed out last year, nondrinkers show greater signs of depression than those who allow themselves to join the party. The authors of the new paper are careful to note that even if drinking is associated with longer life, it can be dangerous: it can impair your memory severely and it can lead to nonlethal falls and other mishaps (like, say, cheating on your spouse in a drunken haze) that can screw up your life. There's also the dependency issue: if you become addicted to alcohol, you may spend a long time trying to get off the bottle. That said, the new study provides the strongest evidence yet that moderate drinking is not only fun but good for you. So make mine a double. ________________ Secondly, even if alcohol does kill 85,000 people/year (it doesn't), how can you possibly expect to curtail alcohol consumption with prohibition laws? Any moron can learn how to make it from fruit or grain- it's not difficult at all. Do you want prohibition laws on those things too? Third, realize that a hundred years ago all drugs were legal. Yet somehow addiction rates back then were no higher than they are today. Lastly, realize that your prohibition laws aren't blocking anyone from accessing drugs. When you have a craving for something that's stronger than any hunger, thirst or sexual desire you're ever known, a determined addict will always find a way to score what they need- no matter what you do to try and stop them. Unless mass political imprisonment, brutal violence, needless suffering and an epidemic of property crimes due to artificially high black-market drug prices is your true goal, your 'war on drugs' can <b>never</b> have your desired effect. It can only fail.
Easy, that's just propaganda produced by no less than satan himself. He just wants to trick people so that they will hurry and die so he can eternally feed on their souls...