1 Well Ace, perhaps to avoid the intrusive enforcement in part re tax payment by dealers you could force dealers to put down a deposit to get a license to sell drugs and anyone without a license gets fucked?

2 Eggzactly, sir!  Your common sense is refreshing.   I am as sick to death of the libertarian pot-porn-prostitution fixation as I have been of potheads themselves since yay about 1969??  So  pot is like still cool and all that?
.
Valu-rite drinkers are definitely a better sort.

3 The people currently involved in the illegal trade of marijuana will not be the same people who would be involved in the legal trade.

Economies of scale will push those who would otherwise participate in the illegal trade out of the marketplace.

SEE, FOR EXAMPLE: There is very little illegal running of liquor in the United States post-Prohibition. The idea that the Budweiser of Pot or the Jack Daniels of Weed wouldn't push out the illegal actors is silly.

I expect a better argument from you, Ace.

4 Your argument is totally convincing. Drugs should not be decriminalized. They should be legalized. At that point, taxes will be paid because legitimate business will get involved. Further, the price will go down so there is more room for the government to charge taxes. And after all, isn't vice really about the government collecting more taxes?

5 Nachos.  I think I need nachos.  Or wings.  That would be awesome.

6
If we open the borders, the rate of illegal entries will drop dramatically.

That's the kind of logic we have in Massachusetts: if we give licenses to illegals, the number of unlicensed drivers on the road will be reduced AND the illegals will buy insurance, so the number of uninsured motorists on the road will be reduced.
So it's great for the state, for safety, and for the taxpayer, and the economy.

That's bullshit.

7 We'll see how happy the drug dealers are when Wal-Mart starts selling $4.00 dime bags.

8 >>>The people currently involved in the illegal trade of marijuana will not be the same people who would be involved in the legal trade. That's my point. Where do you think the laid-off drug dealers now go? To pursue legitimate, lawful employment?

9 Economies of scale will push those who would otherwise participate in the illegal trade out of the marketplace.

I've got 4 acres of pasture and a tractor ready to till it.  That's bigger than a closet and takes less aluminum foil.

10 Personally, I am in favor of anything that will leave a large percentage of the moonbat population stoned on their couches on election day.

11

They are willing to risk prison in order to get those profits. They became drug dealers in the first place for those profits.

Maybe if the legalize it, we can't get ACORN to support their efforts in running for Congress.  Ain't much difference.

12 I hate to say it, but in the whole less crime rate thing that most proponents are talking about. It is not the dealers themselves but the users who will be less likely to be under the microscope of our legal system.

13 #3 by Nom de Blog is right.  Economies of scale will crush the "ma and pa pot store" operations.  If Wal-Mart sells weed, it will be able to do it cheaper and better than the ordinary dealer, even with Wal-Mart obeying all tax laws.

Plus, if you establish a high "licensing fee" to get into the drug business, you can pretty much guarantee that only the big companies will be able to get into the business.

14 seriously, nom, you've grossly misread me. My whole point is that in a regime of legal pot, current illegal pot dealers will simply migrate to another illegal trade. Because it's the illegailty of the trade that draws them, not pot (or coke, or meth, or acid) itself.

15 I'm against decriminalizing drugs, but...

I'm not sure about the supposed arguments made that drug dealers will be the ones to sell drugs once it is legalized.  I thought it was always argued (and correctly I think) that it would put the drug dealers out of business.

Drug dealers know nothing about renting a store space, buying inventory, hiring employees, dealing with payroll, insurance, etc.  Small business owners do, and these would be the people that would jump on this new market. 

Drug dealers would stay in the black market or move on to some other crime, but they would not open businesses. 

16 Legalize marijuana and the profit margins drop to near zero. Unlike tobacco, marijuana is extremely easy to grow. Back in the 70s the place just north of Los Angeles County where I grew up, to the extent that I did, produced a fine crop of pot out of suburban backyards and closets, largely under the noses of unsuspecting parents. Kids who were barely passing in school were becoming expert horticulturalists.

For a time, there was such an abundance that prices went down sharply, almost as low as cigarettes, even though this was supposedly illegal. Make it legal and the number of backyard crops will make it unattractive to big agribusiness operations and the the profits scarcely worth tracking for taxation. simpler to just lump it in with income.

17 Drug dealers NEVER get tax stamps, what are YOU smoking?

While drug dealers who deal MORE than pot, don't think about the product, and may not use it themselves, thus are only in it for profit, several pot dealers got into dealing it specifically to have their own lil stash. The lowest dealers barely make any profit, yet they stick with it, NOT to make outrageous profits, but to have a bit of smoke for themselves.

Also, its the nanny-state-ism that I'm most against. I want the ability to choose wither or not I can mess up. That includes smoking (ciggs) in my favorite restaurant, eating trans fat foods, or drinking my favorite liquor. The Government should NEVER be involved with decisions like this.

I like you Ace, but you're way off on this one. Those arguments are more for the top crack dealers than for the lowly pothead. Let alone the freedom issues.

18 Ace,

Yes. There are very few opportunities for those who would turn to dealing marijuana. It's easily transportable and the penalties are relatively light. Those who would deal MJ won't automatically turn to pimping because they are not substitute goods (or professions).

Some might turn to smack or some other harder drug. But the market for those harder drugs is constrained by a lack of demand, not supply. Therefore the profit margins (which are not as large as you suggest according to the best research by economists) would be driven down if there were more dealers. Thus, the incentives to join the drug trade in harder drugs (where the penalties -- private and public -- are more burdensome) would not be nearly as inviting as you suggest.

I do not think your point stands.

19 Cato did a study on the effects of Portugal decriminalizing all drugs. Good read. Economies of scale, that is what pushes the drug dealers out if it is legal. And would profit margins for the Mexican drug gangs.

20 11    can't=can  sorry, I'm a moron.

21 *cut profit margins, @ 18

22 The people in the illegal trade will turn their sights to something that still has the price benefit of illegality and similar distribution and clientele-- most likely, other drugs, likely meth.  It's not like these are principled Pot Gourmets-- they're traffickers, pursuing a profitable contraband.

23 Interesting points here, especially since I missed the "Entrepreneur Options:  Crack Dealer or Toys R Us Giraffe?" presentation on Career Day.

24 There are already too many college graduates competing for too few jobs.  We need to convert a sizeable number of those college graduates into lazy deadbeats who will be content working at Blockbuster.  Decriminalization of pot is the most reliable way to accomplish this.

25

Forget the decriminalization, think about what is now left of the manufacturing sectors.  What about the normal workers who now engage in a little toke here or there at lunch breaks, off the site or out of the plant?  Drug testing will go overboard and OSHA, insurance, labor unions are all going to implode.

If an employee of mine goes offsite at lunch and has a beer, I may not know that, nor suspect it as it may not affect him.  Hardly anyone in this country has a drink at lunch.  Go to a restaraunt and prove me wrong, but I would say the numbers are less than 10%.  I own my business and have had a drink at lunch twice in the last three years at two early closures for XMAS.

Now, an employee can go and toke a joint or have a couple of bong hits and GET MAJORLY STONED out of his/her goard.  This should be a serious f***ing concern to all.  Why?  If you work in a production facility, rely on someone in a work setting, or work in a facility where there is a lot of moving equipment TAKE NOTE.  This is going to be a litigation nightmare.

Businesses will have to increase insurance.  Now that pot is legal and Jimbo, who drives a forklift, got stoned at lunch and when he got back to CostJumbo Superstores he accidently dropped a pallet load of frozen shrimp onto a mom and her three children.  Or Beckster, who met up with some friends for bong hits, forgot to hit the safety shield prior to engaging the metal stamper and now has a nub and no longer can write or give handjobs to her boyfriend.  Or Floyd, who was a bit too toasty, drove the kindergardners into a GE Locomotive because he lost his track of thought while coasting through the train crossing.

Wake Up People: This is going to bite us all in the ass and in a very bad way!

The lunatards only want it legal so they can smoke it and not have a baton crash down on their skull when a cop shows up at the Lalapalooza festival.

This is going to make things real bad, real quick.

26 JDubya, its legal to drink hard liquor, but does that mean its ok to do so at work?

Comeon!

27 I would also add to Nom's post that legalization would likely bring profit margins way down, but it would also bring costs way down.  No more costly evasion methods.  No more payoffs.  Etc.

Also, there is a difference between dealers who are gang-affiliated and those who are small-time independents.  Most of the "independents" I've known of would not choose violence, especially those who exclusively (or near exclusively) deal in pot or at least to college kids and other preppier people.  They got in the biz b/c they are lazy, and likely enjoy skimming from the top in order to maintain their own drug use.

And in regard to your "small markups" comment, that is incorrect.  6-10% is typical for profit-margins after all expenses, not on the price markup.  Typical convenience store is 30-40% markup from suppliers.  Electronics are 100-200%.  Gasoline is 0-20 cents/gal, depending on the place (discount sellers typically sell at cost to attract business there and get more people buying stuff in the store).

Frankly, I think the biggest effect on the size of the black market will depend on taxation rates.  Lower taxes would mean less evasion and less need for it.  It would also mean less to gain by selling black market.  I recall marijuana was originally "criminalized" by levying a monstrous tax on it that no one was willing to pay.

Personally, I dont really care either way.  I care about as much as I do about global warming.  I have known people whose lives were destroyed from the stuff, but I have also known people to function otherwise normally.  There are certainly social costs from greater and more acceptable use of such products.  And there is also the personal liberty argument.

28 But it takes a chunk out at least. Meth is already high production for the Mexican gangs.

29 I've never smoked, never will, but I still want it decriminalized.  The benefit I expect to get out of legalization is the crippling of the Mexican drug cartels.  That is a particular concern of mine, being a San Diego resident who would like to visit Tijuana again (to pursue the Ace of Spades lifestyle, of course).

30 ...not the unicorns-and-ice-cream fantasies the decriminalization proponents usually offer.

And hamburgers, let's not forget hamburgers.  With Dijon mustard.

The big debate will be over the use of ketchup.

31 The biggest cash crop in my state is pot. 

Interesting story, The MD I work for once decided to start drug testing all of his patients on controlled prescription drugs to be sure they were in compliance with the rules of prescription narcotic use.  It was incredible how patients came back positive for marijuana( around 70-80%).

32 Ok, Ace, I see that what I said earlier is exactly the point you were making, but I think you are addressing something that the proponents of decriminalization never argue. 

I think any decline in crime that decriminalization would cause would only be due to the the fact that there would now be fewer criminal markets available, thus fewer criminal opportunities.  And this is how I have always heard it argued.  So the criminals at the bottom of the criminal-totem-pole would end up either going to jail for lame attempts at crime or (more often I would think) getting a crappy job at Starbucks or something.  Basically they would be unsuccessful in the criminal market.

I think decriminalization is a bad idea for this reason:  we start with something bad being considered a crime.  We realize that we have too much crime.  Making that bad thing not a crime may reduce what is technically called "crime", but the bad thing is still a bad thing.  The argument that "it would reduce crime" has nothing to do with the merits of the real issue imho.

33

current illegal pot dealers will simply migrate to another illegal trade.

Go to any inner city and you will see that they do that now.  They use too much of their product and are forced to move 'up'.  Or they get in with bigger and badder criminals and start stealing, mugging, robbing, etc. 

Heck, you can look at any college and see this.  A guy starts out just doing the football team's homework.  Then he moves to stealing tests.  Then he starts messing with people's grades.  Or look at the college girl that starts dancing, until she figures out she can make more doing dirty mag. layouts.  Then she figures out porn/prostitution is the real money maker.

It has been, and always will be, about making the biggest, easiest buck.  Criminals don't change, they just figure out an easier way to make money.

Ace is right on the money.

34

I could see decriminalization of marijuana (where the debate is usually focused) largely shutting down pot dealers... but does anyone really think that crack, meth or heroin would be decriminalized?

I don't see meth-heads suddenly switching to decriminalized marijuana; smugglers and dealers will simply switch products, much like the mob did- they didn't just close up shop after prohibition ended. 

True, they grew in power because of prohibition, but that was a case of banning a substance that was previously in high demand and seen as socially acceptable.

Perhaps it would have an effect on smuggling, but that assumes that domestic growers wouldn't be prosecuted- otherwise, even decriminalized marijuana still has to come from somewhere.

35 25- How is your business doing, because that there is some of the stupidest shit I have ever read.  Start to finish idiocy.

36 AG,

The social costs of pot smoking definitely exist. But the social costs of criminalization do too. I'm not sure how much policing and incarceration cost but it's definitely not free.

Given the known unknowns, I'd err on the side of personal freedom.

37

Legalizing abortions something like quadrupled the number of back-ally abortions being performed.

I think the people selling drugs illegally now would be just the same or higher if it were legalized because the "legal" loopholes for everyone would make obtaining it legally undesirable when compared with obtaining it illegally. Just like if they legalized all the illegals this minute, there would be 5 million more illegals "living in the shadows" this time next year, because unregulated (i.e., illegal) labor is cheap labor, and the point was cheap labor. Ditto drugs.

Pot is legal in Cali. And how many illegal pot dealers and users are there, again?

38 Legalization = competition.  Drug lords are competent, but they aren't Merck, Pfizer, Bayer, etc.  The price of drugs will plummet, the profit will disappear. For $2, would you rather take nice, name-brand  marijuana or crap-brand grown in human feces illegal marijuana?

Lower profits = draining the swamp of corruption, the police & politicians that happen to stand in the way of other reforms.  How much of 'no school choice' and 'no border control' is paid for by illegal drugs?  Not to mention the terrorism that gets funded.

39 ally = alley

40 Make it illegal to grow or own, other than rolled and packaged pot ... packs like cigs ... this moves a lot of revenue away from criminals.

A decade ago I talked to a young guy (dealer) that had gotten out of prison .. he had killed a guy (a competitor on his turf, missed the second guy or he would have gotten away with it) ... and yes, he got out and got a job as a cook, which is how I met him.

I agree with Nom de blog at #3, it may be like alcohol ... but keep prices up fairly high, maybe half of current street price... all current users can switch to legal, tons of bucks to government ... may even draw some users away from harder drugs ...

41
It will be years until Big Pharma enter the pot business. Until then, the legal pot will be grown by backyard farmers and be sold at flea markets.

In other words: no taxes will be paid.

42 It's not true that scum bags will always be scum bags.  That's what the left said about all of Iraq - we can't bring them democracy, they are fundamentally bad.

Some criminals will turn to crime, because crime is an excuse for evil.  But if crime doesn't pay, most will go to what does pay.  The trick of good government is to not put up barriers and hurdles that encourage illegal activity, and to tear down the regulations that allow crime to fester.

Crimes like home invasions and robberies go down when citizens can carry guns; having more illegal career set asides won't decrease violent crimes. 

43
Again, since when are we happy to see a new source of income for government?

44 Decriminalization of marijuana would be a HUGE mistake. It's gotta be legalized for any real change to occur. It's a ridiculous tame drug anyhow. It shouldn't be against the law to use a little THC as you see fit.

45 I recall marijuana was originally "criminalized" by levying a monstrous tax on it that no one was willing to pay.

It was criminalized by creating a stamp tax on it and not issuing the stamp to anyone.

After much success, the Feds did the same thing with machine guns.

Imagine that.

46 OMG this will just make libertarians even worse when it comes to having sex; it is a miserable experience having sex with  porn- addicted libertarians whose dicks are always jellied, now they'll be stoned as well and their jelly-dicks will become even jellier without any chance for a hard-on.

A hard man is a good fine; decriminalization  just make bad sex for everyone who enjoys having sex.




.

47 "It will be years until Big Pharma enter the pot business." Nonsense. If marijuana is legalized in California I guarantee you that CostCo will be selling it within three months. Guaran-frickin-tee.

48 I agree with Ace that the draw for current dealers is fast easy money. If the fast easy money dissapears from mj, then they move to other endeavors that supply fast easy money. Most busts I see on COPS and other similar shows indicate the dealers aren't now carrying one drug. They carry meth, crack, ecstasy, and pot, whatever's selling. If pot is taken off the list, then the move to other endeavors is effortless. Gov't oversight in licensing and all that grows, but the illegal market changes not much.

I think the economies of scale arguments above miss Ace's important point. Sure you're crowding out a whole lot of people in the mj market, but the other illicit drug markets will attract those who are crowded out. Meth for example, its usage is exploding in the US. Personally after seeing the reports on what that drug does to its users, I would be unwilling to vote to legalize meth, no matter how well mj legalization did in Portugal.

49 Syn, I'm a Libertarian, and I've NEVER had that problem.

Taking too long... That I've had

50 D-ling,

So you think the tobacco farmers in NC and VA will be unable to switch to MJ crops in one year? And that the processing plants and rolling factories will take years to retool for MJ cigarette production?

Dude, you've got to "puff puff PASS" whatever you're smoking because that was completely incoherent.

51 Those who are involved in the illegal drug trade, both the dealers and their junkies, largely really, really enjoy it.  Sure they bitch about it, but they won't trade it for something more legit.  It is a whole culture.  If you legalize pot, I suspect it won't have much of an effect on crime.  They will move onto something else, whether x, or water, or crystal or whatever.  The appeal isn't that it is pot, it is that it is illegal and that it is pot.

52

So, they want to make pot legal, and cigs illegal?! 

The argument should be: If a politician wants to legalize pot, they must state under oath that they will not tax it.   Then we will see if they really believe in their argument (about lowering crime, etc., ) 

53 bonhomme,

I already addressed the "move to different illegal markets" argument above. If more suppliers enter the harder drug trade that will have downward pressure on profits.

More suppliers --> Lower prices

That would be a deterrent.

54 I'd feel better about decriminalization or legalization if only "Big Evvvilll Tobacco" could sell them. RJ Reynolds "Wacki Weeds" brand, every hippie would commit suicide from the cognitive dissonance.

Still the differences between Alcohol and Pot are huge. Alcohol has a deep seated cultural connection with humanity. The earliest known written recipe is for Beer. Society was more or less invented around it. No Beer = No Civilization. Pot on the other hand is a more recent social invention. The 60s counter-culture movement seemed to really bring it out.

Still Black Markets exist even with legal products, smuggling cigs into New York is still a really good business if I'm not mistaken. Besides how much money is being made from illegal pot sales. Are these hardened criminal suppliers (Mexico, gangs, Dealers) going to be all excited about losing their revenue streams. Wouldn't they be a little, I don't know, violent about it?

55 "Sure you're crowding out a whole lot of people in the mj market, but the other illicit drug markets will attract those who are crowded out." There's a much larger barrier-to-entry for the harder drugs. I do, however, think Meth is a horribly destructive drug and should never be legalized. Here's some info of interest: _____ As of 2007, drug and lab seizure data suggests that approximately 80 percent of the methamphetamine used in the United States originates from larger laboratories operated by Mexican-based syndicates on both sides of the border, and that approximately 20 percent comes from small toxic labs (STLs) in the United States. Source: DOJ, http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/cngrtest/ct032207attach.html _________ Yet another argument for militarizing our Southern border...

56 Which of these drugs should be legalised? All or only some? According to what criteria would they be legalised? In what strength, concentrations, forms and quantities? What body or new government authority would determine the criteria? Or would there be no controls or limits? From whom and where would these products be distributed? Would they be available at all hours?

Yet if they are not all legalised, then nearly all the arguments for legalisation amount to nothing. Where the dividing line is drawn between what is legal and what has to be restricted, the criminal element will deal in and promote the remaining restricted substances. Yet there is no way that all the presently controlled drugs could be made legal. Their effects on our society would be obvious.

To suggest that organised crime exists because of drugs is erroneous and the argument of a simpleton. Organised crime existed long before drugs became a problem.

The Mafiosi unofficially ruled part of western Sicily in the 1800's and early 1900's. Similar crime groups, such as the Camorra in Naples and the Onorata Societa (Honored Society) in Calabria, developed in other parts of Italy. The Black Hand was a secret society which practiced extortion on Italian immigrants. All of this was well before prohibition, so to suggest a connection with organized crime is pure fantasy. Organized crime smuggles radio's, CD's, pirated software, sex slaves, prescription drugs, cigarettes, YADA, YADA, YADA!

Somehow we are to believe that they would evaporate into the mist if we legalized drugs?

The reality is that, if all illegal drugs were legalised, organised crime would still exist. Most of the legalisation arguments collapse because, unless all countries are willing to make every drug available to any person in unlimited quantities and combinations, upon the demand of the user, then there will always be a place for a black market and criminal exploiters.

57 AFlyingSquirrel, um yeah, its recent. Forget about the Mexican migrant workers, and Jazz musicians that were used to demonise it in the 30s.

58 LOOK- this is a level-headed government solution to falling tax revenues. It can't possibly go wrong.

59 "Pot on the other hand is a more recent social invention." Absolutely incorrect, Flying Squirrel. "Evidence of the inhalation of cannabis smoke can be found as far back as the 3rd millennium BC as indicated by charred cannabis seeds found in a ritual brazier at an ancient burial site in present day Romania." Source: Lost Civilisations of the Stone Age by Richard Rudgley "Cannabis was also known to the ancient Assyrians, who discovered its psychoactive properties through the Aryans." Source: Marijuana Grower's Guide by Mel Franck

60 And where will they be able to smoke all this legal pot now that there are smoking bans everywhere ? I'm laughing at all this it will never happen. I'm a bartender and all of my customers bitch when they have to go outside in the little circle of life in the back alley to catch a smoke.

61

The trick of good government is to not put up barriers and hurdles that encourage illegal activity, and to tear down the regulations that allow crime to fester.
 

Aah, but therein lies the rub. Our government is too big and cumbersome to combat the massive amount of fraud and abuse in things like Medicaid or welfare or any number of government run things. What makes anyone think that the US government can keep corruption in a legalized drug trade down?

I personally don't really care if pot did get decriminalized; but the pro-pot crowd needs to come up with better reasons than the ones they're giving. And I'd take them more seriously if they weren't all wearing Widespread Panic T-shirts and covered in Cheeto dust.

62 h2u Yeah, I should have added that too. And recently they found someones stash that was 6000 years old. I think Ace even posted it.

63 >> The social costs of pot smoking definitely exist. But the social costs of criminalization do too. I'm not sure how much policing and incarceration cost but it's definitely not free.
Posted by: Nom de Blog at May 06, 2009 05:52 PM (fnU+z)

I don't even see this as being close.  Look at them one at a time:
Policing: Ok, so I'm sure that we would be able to reduce the size of the police force.  But is the cost of running the police an issue these days?  Defense, education and medical care seem to be the biggest state costs.  Where does policing figure in?  How much money overall would be saved?  Also consider that, as pointed out, these drug dealers would not necessarily move on to other legal activities, but would often try to make a quick buck other ways by other illegal activities.  So it's not like you can even just cancel out every penny that is spent on drug related law enforcement.
Incarceration: This cost I could care less about.  The drug dealers that are put in jail currently are scumbags, and society is better off for them being there.  These particular people, regardless of whether drugs are legal or not, are still scumbags.  The cost of putting these people in jail does not bother me one bit.  Like national defence, this is the kind of cost I think that government should incur.

64

make drugs legal, and the profit margin drops to a small level, and you effectively put the big organized crime groups out of business.

Not really. You just consolidate all power to the really big organized crime groups. The Democratic Party, for instance.

65 this is the wackiest reasoning I've ever come across. i had to do a double-take to make sure i didn't misread it.

66 Per Ace's comments: maybe.  Note that while prohibition raised organized crime to a whole new level, it DID drop off quite a bit until the new drug prohibitions began to really bite back in the 60s/70s.
But I still think it would be of great interest to run the experiment.  If nothing else we could get all the lame "possession" charged prisoners out of the prisons  and have more room to keep the real bad guys in.

67 I agree with your assessments which is why I have never bought into the claim by the Legalizers that the tax money from pot sales would be earmarked to go to "education, prevention and treatment". That whole argument is childish and naive given that the people they are making it to (pols and bureaucrats) use the same argument to extract all kinds of fees, surcharges, taxes, etc. from us all the time. Here is my argument-IT'S A WEED. It grows just about everywhere on the planet (with the exception of water, the arctics and deserts/beaches) with or without human assistance. Nobody wants to tax the tomatoes I grow in my garden (yet) for my personal consumption, why should they care if I grow a weed there instead of okra? Does this strike anyone as even remotely absurd anymore? Outlawing a weed? It may not be a very strong argument but then I convince myself pot should be legal everyday about 5:30 and once or twice more throughout the evening until I nod off about 11.

68 Heh. I can see it now. Merck, Pfizer, and Bayer premium brand pot having to defend its product line from Human Feces Illegal Marijuana Syndicate^™ brand... aka the counterfeiter.

Since it's economies of scale in the manufacture of a would-be legal product, third-world slave- and child-labor sweatshop cultivation will skyrocket and their output shipped to prime selling markets; however, the wrapper will be "Pfizer," (or if done by a counterfeiter using too much product on the job, "Pfiser").

Let's face it. No matter how you opt in to this industry, there's a more profitable angle to be abused. Criminals will remain criminals and all this legitimization cover cannot or will not deter those who desire profit optimization.

69 "And where will they be able to smoke all this legal pot now that there are smoking bans everywhere?" In West Los Angeles there are plenty of Hookah bars that would happily cater to pot smokers should it be legalized. The only town that's really taking these smoking bans [FAR too] seriously is Santa Monica. They've gone totally overboard IMHO. Personally, I'd just like to be able to legally smoke in my own apartment or on my patio without needing to pay for a Cannabis Club membership.

70 ^{"but many, perhaps most, of our current criminal class which just happens to be in the drug trade will turn to other criminal activities which afford them the profit levels they seek."}

We'll just have to legalize everything.

71 dan-o what if those scumbags went on to deal harder drugs? Well, I'd think when they got caught, they would get longer and harder time for it, thus keeping them off the street more.

Plus getting the pot users and smaller dealers out of prison let them keep more REAL criminals in longer! Its win win. No more early release for the hard dealers, and other criminals like rapists, etc.

72 "Here is my argument-IT'S A WEED" Actually, CozMark, it's not. Cannabis is an annual, dioecious, flowering herb.

73 <blockquote>So the idea that just because drugs are now legalized -- or even merely decriminalized, which still makes them contraband -- will suddenly cause millions of drug-dealers who pay no (or almost no) income tax to start offering the government a strict accounting of their revenue seems, what's the word, fanciful.</blockquote>But you are overlooking one very important thing: if you can buy a pack of joints@ 7-11, why would you go skulking around in back alleys and dark street corners? Just like repealing the 18th amendment put bootleggers and moonshiners out of business, this would likely have the same effect on drug dealers that primarily deal in pot.

74 The main problem with the criminalization of drugs is that some fucktards actually think it accomplishes anything. It's real simple. I still go out with the "club crowd," so I see these things first-hand and a regular basis.

If we were to go to a nightclub and want to get nicely buzzed on good vodka, it will cost me and the wife about $80. If we wanted to get nicely high on coke, it would cost us about $60 (no, we don't do this). To have a nice night of "rolling" on Ecstasy, it would cost us about $40. I'm assuming that everyone here understands the laws of supply and demand. The supply of drugs is so freaking great that it's substantially cheaper to get high than it is to get drunk. And yes, I know there are cheaper ways to get drunk than "top-shelf" vodka, but there are also cheaper ways to get high than E or blow.

The drug war is an epic failure on all fronts. The market says so. And the arguments that illegal drug dealers won't go out of business are stupid and bogus. Oh it's true that some will still be around, just like you can still find people mixing up moonshine. But 99.99% of the drug trade will be taken over by corporations, branded, packaged, and sold to idiots who can't find better living without chemistry. At least they'll have reliable content and doses, but they'll continue to fry their brains and drop dead at pretty much the same rate as they do now.

The worst thing we have to look forward to with legalization is the inevitable government bailout of the drug cartels and terrorists that we currently fund through our dipshit policies.

75 I think the idea is not that all the dealers suddenly start paying taxes but that Marlboro and Co. roll out a new productline carried by already established tax-paying stores. Since the cigarette corps can now legally grow the raw material and don't have to deal with all the joys illegal production brings they also can probably beat the price point for most dealers. Reducing homebrew jointmakers to the same status as moonshiners: Mostly done because "I made it myself". I assuming this whole thing is about relativly safe drugs -weed, coke- to produce not the dangerous stuff like meth. There is a whole host of reasons while even if a legislature legalized meth -and why would they do that- a home production would be illegal. Privately I don't give a rats ass at all, let all junkies overdose and sooner rather than later Darwin has this problem sorted.

76

If pot becomes legal, cities will make tons of money.  Their red light cameras will sending out 'just sitting in the intersection' tickets left and right.  Plus, television companies will save money because they will only have to make 15 minute shows (that seem like they are 2 hours long).

 

That being said, I personally have heard from several docs that if pot were legal, they would happily give it out because there are less side effects than with narcotic pain pills.

77 The only town that's really taking these smoking bans [FAR too] seriously is Santa Monica. They've gone totally overboard IMHO.

Santa Monica is not even the worst of it.  I think it is Calabasas where smoking outside is illegal  (or maybe Westlake Village, can't remember).  But yeah, these smoking laws are idiotic.

78

You're correct that more suppliers -> lower profits, but their profits are incredible now.  They can take a hit and soldier on with only 500% profit and a gas station attendant skillset.  Additionally the user base (meth) is exploding.  LEOs only take what, 2% off the market at any given time?  Even if they are freed up by not chasing mj operators and triple their success rate, I still argue there is so much profit and so little skill involved, legalizing mj doesn't get us to where the libertarian arguments tell us they will.

79 I just personally think it's another way  for the big brother government  to gain more control over us - regulate us - label us -polarize us - tax us beyond reason - have another thing on the big brother profile to use against someone.

80 If nothing else we could get all the lame "possession" charged prisoners out of the prisons and have more room to keep the real bad guys in. Most of whom are plea bargained down from much more violent crimes because the drug charges are easier to prove and get a conviction. If your goal is to get the evil bastard off the street, you go with what you've got. Most of those "simple possession" felons deserve to be there for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with drugs. (Now whether or not drug laws be used in this way is a whole nother debate.)

81 @ h2u What's a tomatoe? Okra?

82 dan-o what if those scumbags went on to deal harder drugs? Well, I'd think when they got caught, they would get longer and harder time for it, thus keeping them off the street more.
Plus getting the pot users and smaller dealers out of prison let them keep more REAL criminals in longer! Its win win. No more early release for the hard dealers, and other criminals like rapists, etc

First of all, if you are looking for longer jail times, then increase jail times. 

Secondly, "pot users" don't go to jail.  It doesn't happen.  And I don't know what you mean by "small dealers".  If you are talking about kids who are buying quarter-ounce of pot and selling it by the gram, well these "small dealers" are already ignored.  If you are talking about people who buy pot by the pound and sell it by the ounce, well I certainly consider them "REAL criminals". 

83 Ah yes, I had forgotten the 30s Reefer Madness stuff. Yeah but try not to use the all those cool Jazz musicians smoked line, especially since many of the best ended dead after moving to the next cool thing. Oh and it also led to the post-"cool" era, pop-fusion crap.

Heh, now I remember the old story about the 6000y old stash. Perhaps I was unclear, I was speaking culturally. Not that cannabis hasn't been used for forever.

$80 for vodka!! Jeeze I can get 2 fifths of Chopin for less than that. WTF are you drinking, are you too good for Valu-rite?!!

84 "That being said, I personally have heard from several docs that if pot were legal, they would happily give it out because there are less side effects than with narcotic pain pills." Marijuana isn't really a painkiller, though. THC does have some very interesting medicinal properties: http://tinyurl.com/dbyl3e "Santa Monica is not even the worst of it." I dunno... As of April 17, 2008: At the meeting, the City Council also directed staff to prepare and return with an ordinance on tobacco retailer licensing and a resolution encouraging the city's pharmacies not to sell tobacco products. The ordinance strengthening the city's smoking ban by making restaurant owners and managers responsible for knowingly or intentionally allowing smoking in outdoor dining areas will not go into effect until 90 days after the council approves it at a its second reading on April 22nd, which is standard procedure. The ordinance will include an outreach and marketing campaign — and businesses will be required to have signage at outdoor dining areas that is sufficient to instruct all diners about the law. Even with $100 as the base fine — which is still relatively high for an infraction — with mandatory penalty assessments, the total fee will come to $380, Radinsky said. Currently, smoking is prohibited on the Third Street Promenade and in all farmers markets, all outdoor dining areas and outdoor service areas, such as bus stops, ATM lines and movie theater lines, and within 20 feet of entrances, exits or open windows of buildings open to the public. It is also prohibited in the city's public parks and on its beaches. Source: The Argonaut, http://tinyurl.com/clcy7a

85 If we were to go to a nightclub and want to get nicely buzzed on good vodka, it will cost me and the wife about $80. If we wanted to get nicely high on coke, it would cost us about $60 (no, we don't do this). To have a nice night of "rolling" on Ecstasy, it would cost us about $40. I'm assuming that everyone here understands the laws of supply and demand. The supply of drugs is so freaking great that it's substantially cheaper to get high than it is to get drunk. And yes, I know there are cheaper ways to get drunk than "top-shelf" vodka, but there are also cheaper ways to get high than E or blow.

Posted by: Evil Red Scandi

Your argument makes no sense.

If drugs are already cheaper THAN A LEGAL PRODUCT, then how would legalising them change anything?

Addicts cannot hold a job, yet they need dope. The only way to get the money after they lose their jobs is through burglary, fraud, identity theft, prostitution or becoming a dealer. Some of them exploit their own children to get money for the drug.

How does legalizing drugs stop the violent crime associated with users acquiring money for drugs? If youÂ’re broke and can't hold a job, you still need to steal. A reduction in the price doesnÂ’t change that. Free drugs or legalizing bad drugs would not make criminal addicts into productive citizens.

86 First, the disclaimers: I smoked pot as a wayward youth. If it were legalized, I would not resume smoking it. I am diabetic, and smoking anything is completely verboten.

Ace,

Every argument you muster against legalizing pot  fails when you substitute the worlds "alcoholic beverage(s)" for "pot."

By your arguments, we should never have ended prohibition.

What is needed is to treat it exactly as we do alcohol:

1.) Allow small amounts to be grown at home, analogous to home brewed beer and wine.
2.) Regulate and tax larger commercial growers and resellers.
3.) (this one is the key) Develop a drug test for MJ that can accurately tell when you are under the influence. Not whether you've smoked in the last 60-90 days; whether you smoked in the last 4-8 hours or so. It must measure, not just whether you've smoked MJ, but how much is in your system - just as we can now do for alcohol. This will allow cops to police the roads, and business owners to tell if their employees are working under the influence.

There will always be employers who, as they have a perfect right to do, contractually forbid their workers to get high, just as CNN forbids tobacco use. Others will only get involved where there is an accident, or incident. Still others may spot test, on a random basis, or for cause. That is their right. The workers who can confine their use to after work, and come in to work bright eyed and bushy tailed won't have a problem, and the hopeless burnout stoners can find suitable employers - just as they already do now.

Will employers have a headache the first few weeks? Yes, but nothing a little workplace discipline won't be able to control. The development of a reliable, accurate test is the key, and nothing should be done until that is ready.

87 Yes Pot users do go to jail. Some to prison, depending on the state.

And I was talking about the longer sentences that selling coke has already vs selling the same dollar amount of pot.
And many of the smaller dealers like you point out, ARE spending time. If caught they can spend years for a QP. Either in the house, or taking resources away from probation/parole officers with harder criminals they should be watching.

88

Plus getting the pot users and smaller dealers out of prison let them keep more REAL criminals in longer!

We need to put an end to that myth. I don't know about small towns, but just about everywhere else pot users are hardly ever put in jail. If they're caught with personal use dope, 9 times out of 10 they get a misdemeanor charge and probation, regardless of how big a shithead they might be. The idea that our prisons are teeming with non-violent potheads is nonsense.

89 What happens to drug testing then - right now if they find anything "hinky" -  I'm fired, period.

90 "What's a tomatoe? Okra?" CozMark, the tomato plant is a perennial (though sometimes annual) herb in the nightshade family. Okra is also an annual or perennial herb. Both are known more for the fruit they bear. Yes, the okra in cajun cooking is a fruit.

91 >>>If drugs are already cheaper THAN A LEGAL PRODUCT, then how would legalising them change anything? Red Scandi Erik's post is interesting but it misses a point: The bar he's going to pays rent and therefore charges him for rent. Erik is also paying the bartender and waitstaff and etc. for his drink. The drugs he's talking about are sold by people not having rent and not having exclusive right to sell in that establishment. I think a better comparison would be the cost of a bottle of vodka bought from a liquor store to the cost of drugs. Buying vodka from the liquor store avoids the additional costs of rent, overhead, employees, exclusive right to sell on the premises, etc., of the bar. Vodka is cheaper. Good bottle = $30, 40 bucks, right? But still, perhaps not as cheap as might be guessed. The "good vodka" thing throws this comparison off, too, because once a product is legalized as vodka is, brand differentiation and intangible elements that lead to perceived excellence play into price. I think the right comparison is with low-to-middle-tier vodka. Again, he's making a point, but I don't think it's true that if we control the other variables it's exactly correct to say "average drugs are cheaper than average booze."

92 "What happens to drug testing then" I imagine marijuana, should it be legalized, would likely be removed from drug screening.

93

I had a 17 year old kid say this to me one time back in the late 80's: "Dude, what we need to do is like......lock all  you Christian dudes up somewhere and out of our way for like........a couple of years man, so the rest of us could like.......fuckin' party our asses off without you Christian dudes fuckin' with us ya know. After a couple of years we'd all be dead from partying to much and then ya'll could like........escape and take the thing back over ya know."

I think about this dude every time someone tries to make the argument for legalization. I think the better option would just be to lock all the stoners up somewhere in the middle of Nevada andair drop them all the dope they could ever want and enough food and water to get by and let them party themselves to death. Same result in the end without violating my civil rights.

94 bonhomme,
So police power used to stop MJ dealers would get moved to harder drug enforcement. And more beds are opened in jails for harder drug dealers. I fail to see how
When RJR (or Altria, if you prefer the new name), Philip Morris and ATC get involved in pot production their production costs, distribution costs and marketing costs will be well below that of the criminal dealers. (And sure, some 15 year old somewhere will get weed illegally from an of-age kid. Big whoop. That happens every day right now.)
My main argument is to increase personal freedom and decrease government intervention wherever possible -- and that doesn't include coke or meth in my book. The costs and benefits are a secondary argument for me.

anonymous drivel,
Do we eat a whole lot of third world corn? Wheat? Sugar? Or more importantly, tobacco? Our farmers are so efficient there is very little outsourcing of those products. Why would weed be any different?

95 Normal.com

Oklahoma for example:

Someone caught selling ANYTHING there would get:

Sale: Less than 25 Lbs = Felony = 2 years to LIFE + $20,000 fine.

Um, yeah, they aren't sitting in jail for a harmless crime. Nevemind.

96

86. Josef K.

totally agree + you answered my question

97 Josef, I'm not really arguing against it on the whole. I'm only correcting arguments about legalizing it that I think are greatly overstated. Most of these arguments are at least true a litte bit, but not nearly as true as a legalization-proponents urge. I'm being a ref, not a player.

98 pendejo grande, do you really think all marijuana smokers are Jeff Spicoli? For heavens sake... There is zero difference between a casual marijuana smoker and a casual drinker. Zero difference.

99 Posted by: Evil Red Scandi at May 06, 2009 06:19 PM (erlfI)

First of all you comparison is unfair because you are including not only the product (alcohol), but the markup associated with going to a bar.  The nicest bottles of vodka costs 35-40 bucks.  A bottle of Kettle One or Stoly (both of which are very good) are often on sale at grocery stores in CA for $22 or so. 

Secondly, if you are spending $60 for blow for two people for one night, you are having a really short night.  And ecstasy is about $20 a pill, but only last for like 3 hours tops, so that is potentially another pretty short night.

But most importantly, I don't see what all of this has to do with whether it should be decriminalized or not.  This is why I don't like the term "War on Drugs".  It gives the impression that it is a battle that can be lost.  Oh, damn!  Drugs won.  Time for us to pack up and go home.  Drugs have a huge societal impact, not to mention the damage they do to the human body once you get to the heavier ones.  This is why they should be illegal.

100 dan-O @ 82,

There are a limited number of beds in jails. So you can't just increase sentences and keep people in longer.

And most people will not vote to build considerably more jail space. NIMBY problems and taxing problems are too big to overcome, often.

101 Yep Nom me too. Personal Freedom should be the focus.

102 A bottle of Kettle One or Stoly (both of which are very good) are often on sale at grocery stores in CA for $22 or so. dan-O, if you're a vodka fan I suggest heading to CostCo. They're selling Grey Goose under the Kirkland label for next to nothing. It's a great deal even if the vodka isn't THAT awesome. Best vodka I've ever had was in Washington State: Crater Lake Vodka http://www.bendistillery.com/crater-lake-vodka.html

103 Sorry, Ace, but  are you wrong.

If you legalize pot, it means that anyone can enter the business, not just drug dealers.  And if legal, growing and selling pot, good pot, would be a nice business.

If anyone can sell and grow legally, then over the space of a few growing seasons, the price per ounce would fall dramatically.  Why?  Because lots of people would grow pot.  Much would be crap, but there would still be a glut of good pot as new user/dealer/grower networks got sorted out.  (Let me point out to the non-user: good pot is alright, bad pot is no good at all.)

The cheaper price means much less profit for anyone growing, though it can still be done, by the better growers and those who can learn.  The growers will also be able to expand their market to less-than-1 ounce purchases.

The user will benefit from a much cheaper price, and the ability to make choices among the plethora of new growers.  The best growing operations will rise to the top.  They will get the repeat business and a nice life style.
(I would recommend that we make rules so that pot growing can only be single farmer operations that can NET no more than 150 K per year.  Think about it.  And in case your wondering, the real money in those first years would be in How to Grow books and videos, seeds, equipment, and supplies, except for the already established growers.)

It should be forbidden to import pot from other countries.  Period. Lets keep the money in the US and lets not encourage foreign bad guys.  Even if other countries legalize it, we shouldn't let them become a source of supply.  They won't obey the 1 farmer rule. 

The criminals, such as they are, will have to find new work. 

Where we would see the greatest impact would be in the dramatic drop in sales in OTC pain killer drugs, certain cancer drugs, tranquilizers. 

Done right, it would be a good idea.  Done wrong, and corporate agriculture would take over.

104 EVERYONE- DO NOT make bar bets about herbs with h2u.

105 "I'm being a ref, not a player.


Posted by: ace at May 06, 2009 06:40 PM"

Ah I see. Makes sense now.

106 I always hate it when I hear (nowadays, especially) how we can retire the national debt if we make pot legal and "tax the shit out of it."  The obvious rejoinder  is always, what you think the government can't find some bullshit to spend it on? 

107 DO NOT make bar bets about herbs with h2u. LOL -- That's what happens when you attend UC Santa Cruz for an undergraduate education... you wind up with all sorts of useless knowledge.

108 sears poncho,

You're absolutely correct about the government finding more spending options. I don't buy the "closing the national debt (or deficit) argument either.

109 Sale: Less than 25 Lbs = Felony = 2 years to LIFE + $20,000 fine.
Posted by: JarvisW at May 06, 2009 06:40 PM (8yPsP)

I get the feeling you don't have any idea how much 25 lbs of pot is.  And earlier, I said 1/4 ounce, not pound.  Whatever is on the books and the action that is taken are completely different.  Unless I'm mistaken and the prisons are full of high school kids who bought 1/4 ounce of pot sold a few grams.

But I'm pretty sure I'm not.

110 The law of unintended consequences.  It'll be interesting to see how this universal law plays out if this happens.

111 the smugglers can make many orders of magnitude more smuggling drugs than they can extorting money from dirt farmers. It's not even close.

112 pendejo grande, do you really think all marijuana smokers are Jeff Spicoli? For heavens sake... There is zero difference between a casual marijuana smoker and a casual drinker. Zero difference
Posted by: h2u at May 06, 2009 06:41 PM (TZKUw)

Sorry, but simply isn't true.  The casual drinker is the guy who has one glass on wine with dinner.  You don't even get a buzz from this.  You get an intangible feeling of relaxation.  With pot, if you get anything, you get a headchange.

I think that this is exactly the difference between pot and alcohol.

113 dan-o, I know exactly what I'm talking about.

That happens to be the SMALLEST amount they have on the books. So as I said, ANYTHING sold can get that sentence.

Go to Norml.com and see for yourself. Pick a random state as I did.

114 Oh, and as I pointed out in a previous post, even if they aren't taking up a bed in prison, they are still on the roll for Probation/Parole, and those officers could be freed up to keep an eye on the harder criminals at the LEAST.

115 whats this "headchange" you get if you take one hit of pot?

Is it like what is depicted in Refer Madness?

116 What Nom said, mostly. (Good grief!)

As to the point about criminals finding new jobs, it's certainly true that under legalisation a good number of people who would otherwise get into the drugs trade will find other high-risk and probably illegal ways to make money, or just to be somebody and blow off steam. (It's also true that people who are already criminals thanks to the drugs trade will have an even stronger tendency to stay in crime in one way or another.) So, no, the drug-dealers won't all open small bookstores or start making artisanal cheese. But it's hard to seriously claim that taking drugs (or some specific popular drug) out of the possible ways for criminals to make money won't significantly reduce the amount of crime overall. If that was true, then banning all privately-owned guns in the US would reduce the drugs problem dramatically, right? All the new gunrunners and basement gunsmiths would simply come out of the pool of people who would be committing other kinds of crime anyway, yes? Similarly, there probably can't be any signficant deterrent effect from increasing detection rates or penalties for crimes, because if potential criminals don't respond to the incentive of reduced rewards for crime, why expect them to respond to the incentive of increased risk in committing crime?

Also, while there is clearly some effect by which drugs crime has an opportunity cost for other crime, there's also very clearly an effect by which the drugs-crime bonanza supports and encourages other crime, by sustaining a subculture and an infrastructure which other crime uses too: money launderers, bent cops, crime-tolerant users and girlfriends, thugs and hitmen and all the connections between them. So - taking it that the total amount of crime probably isn't very firmly fixed - it's very plausible that the drugs trade is, on the nett, increasing not decreasing the amount of non-drugs crime too. Cut off the pipeline of drugs money that sustains the crime infrastructure at its current size and the infrastructure is likely to shrink.

Again, the example of Prohibition is relevant. Is there anyone who disputes that Prohibition probably increased overall crime significantly, rather than just increasing the proportion of crime that was alcohol-related?

117 Oh, you mean like how cigarettes are going to be when they keep raising the taxes on them?

118 Good analysis, Ace.

119
64make drugs legal, and the profit margin drops to a small level, and you effectively put the big organized crime groups out of business.

Not really. You just consolidate all power to the really big organized crime groups. The Democratic Party, for instance.

Posted by: flenser at May 06, 2009 06:13 PM (veaUx)

I was thinking this too ... now that the Dems have control, and are passing trillions to UAW and Dem banker/criminals ... they want to bring their drug operation under the government umbrella ... crowd out the foreign competition, expand their operations, use government employees as enforcers ... a new Italy.

Maybe organized crime is just moving up the ladder ... they are in government BIG now, but they will need more revenue to keep THEIR government operations running.  ACORN can't do it all ...

120 So to everyone who thinks legalizing pot is a good thing, how long before the same chuckleheads who went and sued big tobacco, and billions doing so, realize they can make the same claims about pot. I cannot see the logic in making pot legal contemporaneous with the nigh criminalization of tobacco smoking.

121 >>> And if legal, growing and selling pot, good pot, would be a nice business. Yes, and it would still be mob-controlled or mob-coerced. Again, NYC is finally breaking the century-long mob-tax on restaurants and bars. The mob didn't give up on its revenue from bars and restaurants just because alcohol became legal. They just found new ways to seek rents from such now-legal purveyors.

122 IF we produced the BEST quality dope (of all kinds) - pharmaceutical grade - and dumped it on the market at pennies per ton, we could not only dent the gangs but could put most of the 3rd world pseudo-gummints out of business. USA!

123 There are a limited number of beds in jails. So you can't just increase sentences and keep people in longer.
And most people will not vote to build considerably more jail space. NIMBY problems and taxing problems are too big to overcome, often
Posted by: Nom de Blog at May 06, 2009 06:41 PM (fnU+z)

Nom, I agree with you that jail space is a problem.  But I still don't see how that should lead one to conclude that we should just start decriminalizing stuff.  It means we need to figure out how to build more jail space.  And yes, there are huge problems in that arena.  But I'm just saying that the merits of drug decriminalization need to be argued on their own.  Just as if a person who was trying to argue decriminalization of <insert crime here> would need to make the case for that particular crime, not appeal to jail space.

124 There are several stated reasons for legalization:

1. Increased tax revenue to the state. Already been discussed.

2. Reducing the burden on the state from elimination of enforcement, prosecution, and incarceration.In theory, you'd also reduce crimes related to marijuana dealing, though I am skeptical that a lot of those people wouldn't just turn to some other illegal drug as you have already stated.

However, let's not kid ourselves that there will be any savings here for the taxpayers. The money that was being spent on enforcement, prosecution, and incarceration will just be spent on some other government program because government never reduces its budget. I suspect that this is the actual motivation for the CA officials who are advocating for legalization. This way they can say they are cutting programs and saving the taxpayers money without actually doing it.

3. Reducing the power of the state. I think this was the main reason that guys like Friedman and Buckley supported drug legalization. For example, some (many?) state allow confiscation of property if marijuana is discovered on the property. In other words, you could lose your home if your kid's dope is found in your house. The banks now report any transfer of funds in excess of $10,000 because of anti-drug laws. If you are caught with large quantities of cash anywhere you are suspected to be involved in drug trafficking; as such, the state can confiscate the cash and force you to come claim it and justify why you had it in the first place. The potential for fraud and abuse is way too high, especially in cash-strapped jurisdictions. In addition, there's simply the principle of the matter that innocence is supposed to be presumed.

I am not sure that I could be on board for legalization of all drugs as I think the effects of things like cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine are just too destructive to society. I would not be opposed to legalizing pretty much everything but the above three, then focusing enforcement on the small set and cracking down on demand by jailing addicts and addressing either the addiction or the psychological issues that led them into drug use in the first place.

125 The drug war is an epic failure on all fronts. ... But 99.99% of the drug trade will be taken over by corporations, branded, packaged, and sold to idiots who can't find better living without chemistry. At least they'll have reliable content and doses, but they'll continue to fry their brains and drop dead at pretty much the same rate as they do now.

Posted by: Evil Red Scandi at May 06, 2009 06:19 PM (erlfI)

If this is really what would happen, I don't see how it would be possible to effectively legalize drugs and trade in them.  These users would continue to drop dead from the product?  The lawsuits would destroy these companies.  Hell, it takes 50 years to die from smoking, and look at the lawsuits they underwent.  Asbestos... etc.

In our current legal environment, if we legalized it for sale by corporations, they would create it and sell it at much lower prices.  Users would buy and die, and then the lawsuits would begin.  In order to be able to pay for the lawsuit settlements, and the liability and legal insurance these companies would need to carry, the price would go through the roof.  Probably even higher than it is now.

In which case, it would still be profitable for a street dealer to function.

Let's say that the corporation initially sells heroin for $50 per gram.  This puts all the illegal dealers who are selling it for $500 per gram out of business.  But then the lawsuits and liability suit begin.  Which jacks the price of legal heroin up to say...$250 per gram.  At this point, I suspect the illegal dealers could make a comback, because they could sell for approximately $125 per gram and still make a good profit because they wouldn't be paying any of the insurance and legal expenses.

What say you economic types?

126 Um, Ace, you've completely missed the point. The decrease in crime is supposed to come from people who no longer have to steal to support their drug habits. The criminal behavior of hte dealers is significantly less destructive (due to sheer numbers) than the criminal behavior of the adicts / losers who steal to support their overprice habits. Whether this argument is valid, I don't know. But it's not the argument you addressed.

127

Eh, legalize weed. 

No, it is not going to reduce the number of hard-core criminals but it will remove a source of easy fat income (since weed is used by a large % of population) from those baddies.  Anything that makes their life a wee bit more tough is fine by me.

I agree with others that the local criminal organizations lose to the big US companies (Wally world, Philip Morris, others).  Tough for any crime org. to have a national-level scope and then have any sort of staying power as compared to legal corperations etc.

Heck, the big companies should even be able to get good PR out of it....Wal-Mart Happy Face as heroic crimefighter busting up da gangs. 

128 #123, I'll give ya that one, as I said, my main focus is on personal freedoms in this fight.

I don't want it taxed either.

But as a benefit of legalization the jails would have some less people, if not right away, then as police focus on other crimes more. Any minute spent fighting pot is not spent fighting other crime. Maybe its not the best thing to push, and I wasn't, I was just debating your point with the facts that say differently from your statement.

129 I suggest a slightly different approach.   Decriminalize growing and use of ones own drug but continue to stop the commerce with a 100 % tax on the gross sales.   Sell $100 of dope and pay $100 in taxes (+any late fees).   This would greatly reduce the profit margin for the current dealers,   It might also be self limiting.  Get stoned all the time and your crop will fail.  Of course there will always be small sales between individuals that is untraceable, but this is not likely to be worse that the current situation.

An interesting historical note can be found in the Personal Memoirs of  US Grant from his experience during the Mexican War.  In one Mexican town tobacco was outlawed and as a result, everybody smoked including many of the kids.  After the war, tobacco became legal and its use dropped back to normal.

130 I am not sure that I could be on board for legalization of all drugs as I think the effects of things like cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine are just too destructive to society. I would not be opposed to legalizing pretty much everything but the above three, then focusing enforcement on the small set and cracking down on demand by jailing addicts and addressing either the addiction or the psychological issues that led them into drug use in the first place
Posted by: Ghost of Lee Atwater at May 06, 2009 07:03 PM (RD3eN)

I agree that separate cases need to be made for pot decriminalization and other drugs.  Apples and oranges.

But even then, you mentioned those three as being the ones too destructive to keep legal.  What about prescription drugs?

131 Greg Q: surely true in the case of some drugs (heroin!), likely not true in the case of others (pot).

132 >>> The decrease in crime is supposed to come from people who no longer have to steal to support their drug habits... First of all, drugs aren't that expensive now. It's questionalbe how much cheaper they'd get, especially with proposals like 100% taxes. So the addict who can't hold a job still needs smack and still needs to eat, yes? So he steals. I don't know how many people driven to crime to support their habit would be able to pay for drugs by legal employment. If you can't hold a job of any kind, you still have to steal. Second, I am noting that those dealers currently in "less harmful criminal activity" would naturally turn to more harmful criminal actiivity, if they weren't making enogh from selling drugs anymore. I didn't miss the point... I think maybe you did. Not sure and not trying to be snarky. I think though maybe you did miss the point. A criminal who has been making easy money on pot is going to turn to some other easy, criminal way of making money if his pot-business goes bust. He's not going to learn a trade like welding or pipefitting.

133 Disclaimer:  I don't use drugs.  I have never got high from anything other than alcohol, and don't do that much any more.   I do know people who do use drugs, as most of us do, even a few with serious drug addiction issues.

I'd legalize it all: pot, crack, meth, smack, the lot.

Legalization will cause drug smuggles an dealers to switch to other less lucrative crimes or go more or less straight.  Legitimate businesses. mostly not affiliated with the former drug dealers, can grow, process, and market the product.  This can be facilitated through reasonable legislation.  This should reduce the crime rate.

Decriminalization would be more convenient to the users, which include a large minority of North Americans, but should little effect on the overall serious crime rate.

I think legalization with some minor controls on who can sell them and under restrictions similar to those for selling alcohol would be a good idea.  It should ruin the drug-lords and their minions and free up money now spent on drug enforcement to go to drug education and treatment.  There would still be a few dealers, as there are moonshiners and bootleggers, but there are a lot fewer of the latter than there were in the 1930's, and much less violence involved in selling alcohol now as then.

So what would the criminals do?   Crimes that are less lucrative, less safe to commit, and less likely to encourage corruption.  It won;t cause many to go straight, but it will reduce their income and make crime a less attractive career choice.

The effect on users?  Not much.  Drugs are available enough now that there's no real barrier to getting them.  I doubt there would be a significant rise in use.   Addicts will still be addicts and be petty criminals to support their habits, though there may be more treatment available.   It will also be a bit more difficult for underage kids to get drugs, say about as hard as it is now for them to get alcohol - that is not very hard, but probably hard enough to reduce teen drug use by some.

134 Ace, while I agree that many of the higher level pot dealers may do that. I believe the majority of dealers are the low level ones, and as I pointed out earlier are mainly in it for their own free stash. Those dealers will buy like everyone else, and be happy they no longer have to worry about the cops kickin in the door.

135 We should legalize theft and murder too, and tax it. The crime rate would drop and we'd make more money off it all! Woo logic!

136 Again, if he wanted to work hard to earn money, he would already be doing so. He's in drugs because it's easy and big money. If he's pushed out of drugs he will turn to another occupation offering easy and big money, which will be a criminal occupation, unless he suddenly discovers he's a pop sensation or something.

137 Oh, and WONT be moving on to deal meth or coke, just 'cause they like dealin.

138 >>>Those dealers will buy like everyone else, and be happy they no longer have to worry about the cops kickin in the door. Not for drugs, no, but I doubt most of them will become law-abiding. They'll break other laws. Just to add nuance: I don't necessarily oppose this. I am in a period of "What do I care" sort of thinking on this. But if we're debating it, let's debate it realistically, and not indulge in unlikely scenario-spinning.

139 >>>Oh, and WONT be moving on to deal meth or coke, just 'cause they like dealin. Why not? What's he going to do to pay rent?

140 The idea that cannabis smokers cannot be productive members of society is ludicrous. I am a highly educated, well-paid, tax-paying, and law-abiding citizen. I have been smoking marijuana on a weekly/daily basis for years and I will continue to do so regardless of the law. I personally know many educated, professional, otherwise conservative people who do the same. 

Of course there will always be criminals and legalizing drugs won't change that. However, I believe legalizing marijuana would result in a shift of large amounts of wealth back from criminal dealers to law-abiding citizens (like myself) and governments in the form of private legal profits and taxes. Why not cut off a major source of funding for criminals and then ruthlessly hunt and prosecute those remaining who still wish to commit crimes and/or sell hard, dangerous drugs like meth or heroin?

Time for cannabis users everywhere to stand up and demand legalization. Maybe after this next bong hit ;-)

141 Well, my personal experience with those kinds of dealers from my college (and later) days, tells me they wont.

They did it for the free stuff, and to be sure they had their own supply. They wern't paying rent, or buying BMWs.

142 If they were going to be dealing Meth and Coke, they WOULD. lol.

Its easier to find in some areas anyway.

143 Ace reffing a discussion of weed is like Perez Hilton reffing a discussion of vaginal intercourse - he's generally ignorant on the subject, but has a visceral disgust for it.

144 >>>The idea that cannabis smokers cannot be productive members of society is ludicrous. I am a highly educated, well-paid, tax-paying, and law-abiding citizen. I have been smoking marijuana on a weekly/daily basis for years and I will continue to do so regardless of the law. I personally know many educated, professional, otherwise conservative people who do the same. That is of course true. I think what wigs people out here mostly is the effect of this on their kids. People with kids worry about their ability to guide them, and they'd prefer it (by and large) if they had help keeping their kids from doing things they should't. The help here is the government keeping drugs illegal which in theory reduces their kids' access to them. But I don't know if that "in theory" part is very accurate. I also know that there are other dangers -- like the possibility your kid might actually wind up busted with a non-trivial amount of pot on him, and then he might face jail. I know a very anti-drug person who suddenly became very pro-legalization when his kid got caught with a dealable amount of pot on him and faced jail. It wasn't a huge amount; he was no big-time dealer. But it was enough to sell to maybe 10 or 20 people. That's the other side of this. Yeah, people want the "bad kids" punished to reduce their number and keep them from leading good kids astray; but what happens if your kid turns out to be one of the bad kids (or sorta-bad kids)?

145 Ace,

The price of weed would drop precipitously. Cigarettes sold on military bases that don't have to pay all the taxes are VERY cheap. They used to be less that 10% of the cost of cigarettes at the local convenience store.

Military Types: Is that still true?

Pot grows in the exact same soil. NC and VA would see tobacco farmers switch their crops at the latest next spring. And they could produce the weed at, I'm guessing, 50 cents per pack. The rest would be taxes.

And people would buy a pack of 20 weed cigarettes rolled thing like "Virginia Slims" for at least 20 bucks.

146 The effect on users?  Not much.  Drugs are available enough now that there's no real barrier to getting them.  I doubt there would be a significant rise in use.
Posted by: dave aaa at May 06, 2009 07:19 PM (I8pXJ)

Ace already addressed you first points with this blog post (did you read it?) so I'll skip those.

Where do you get the idea that it would not increase drug use or that the usage of drugs would stay the same?  The number of people that have never tried pot because it is currently illegal is quite big.  And as for coke, heroin, meth, etc...  The current illegality of these hardcore drugs certainly has an effect on how many people use it.

147 I was going to mention that observation of yours, steve. I am trying to keep my personal antipathy to drug-users out of it. Frankly, I did realize, when you said that, that I know a fair number of people who indulge and so whatever stereotype I'm carrying around in my head is largely refuted by personal experience.

148 Yep Ace. Kids will get it anyway. In fact they can get more than I could get if I wanted to find hard drugs.

They may NOT get it, but I bet 90% of them know who to ask if they wanted it.

149 135

It was geniuses like you that thought if alcohol was outlawed people would stop drinking it. Right back at ya with your logic snark.

Nobody is saying to stop enforcing property or violent crimes. This is a very important point that many people do not grasp. People think "oh X is a crime" and immediately lump it in with rape, murder, and being a secured creditor for Chrysler. Something as harmless as drug consumption shouldn't have some legal stigma against it. Those who steal, rape, murder and try to get more than 29 cents on the dollar from the Chrysler bankruptcy should be dealt with, not the guy that is growing a freaking flower in his basement.

150 I'd like to see a Zogby poll on how many people would try it for the first time if legal.

One side would be surprised by the results I'm sure. Pretty sure its not me, but it would be interesting.

151 The idea that cannabis smokers cannot be productive members of society is ludicrous. I am a highly educated, well-paid, tax-paying, and law-abiding citizen. I have been smoking marijuana on a weekly/daily basis for years and I will continue to do so regardless of the law. I personally know many educated, professional, otherwise conservative people who do the same
Posted by: TX Tree at May 06, 2009 07:22 PM (/oej+)

I think when people say these things about pot smokers, they are making generalizations.  Which is fine.  100% of pot smokers don't need to be lazy deadbeats for the generalization to be true.  And if the generalization is true, then these people are a burden on society.

And the generalization does seem to be true (as a generalization).  I don't know, maybe that is because most good citizens don't smoke pot only because it is illegal.  If that is the case, legalization would cause a lot more responsible people to start smoking pot, and the generalization would disappear.  But I suspect that is not the case.

152 dan-O I bet you'd be surprised at how many of your friends and acquaintances are fine productive members of society that also indulge weekly or more.

They just don't tell you.

153 Dan-O, you are making the same lovely "generalizations" that statists make about gun owners. Since however many violent murders involve a gun, it must mean that gun owners are violent murderers. Clearly this is not the case.

154 Ace:

A criminal who has been making easy money on pot is going to turn to some other easy, criminal way of making money if his pot-business goes bust. He's not going to learn a trade like welding or pipefitting.

Again, what about Prohibition? It seems indisputable that the Eighteenth Amendment significantly increased the number of people in crime (in various ways); it didn't just shuffle around a roughly-fixed pool of criminals.

155 Nom de Blog: "Do we eat a whole lot of third world corn? Wheat? Sugar? Or more importantly, tobacco? Our farmers are so efficient there is very little outsourcing of those products. Why would weed be any different?"


One difference - the price that can be charged and profit that can be pursued for a varyingly addictive compound.

Foodstuffs have all sort of market competition and can be substituted by the consumer. Growers/producers are cognizant of the prices they can impose on a public that will readily switch to something else. Too many alternatives exist. Drugs do not have such competition, particularly something addictive where price or substitute product is less of an option for the user. The manufacturer knows it can command a higher price because the user/addict must have his fix. The user's biochemistry will dictate what he'll pay more than the state of his pocket book.

Knowing this, and knowing profit is the purpose of business, there's economic pressure for the manufacturer to keep prices as high as is possible for as long as possible. Just because it could produce a cheap product as a "cost plus" item doesn't mean it will. In fact, it won't. It will charge as much as it possibly can at all times. The question is, would brand name mfg's in the U.S., for example, outcompete foreign competition? I don't think it would because the very act of legalizing the drug would invite government regulation, oversight, labor laws, insurance, etc. that foreign producers, the illegal sector anyway, would eschew.

The comparison to tobacco, and not foodstuffs, is the closest analog to pot or other currently illegal drugs. Apples to apples, as it were. So, yes, tobacco has been a staple in this country since its founding and the industry has become expert in the enterprise. The reason it still maintains its monopoly domestically is because we have the perfect environment for its production both in the actual topography/soil/acreage and the capital infrastructure to harvest. Pot culture, however, does not require nearly as stringent parameters and likely grows much better in other environments around the globe.

Knowing this, mfg and distribution of pot will likely be cheaper elsewhere compared to the U.S. (where government will insist upon "control"), the incentive to maintain high quality product and subsequent demand of price premium will remain, and the opening for undercutting that premium or, as I stated, counterfeiting will continue.

What is the ultimate cost to production or the justifiable premium in a controlled market? Who knows. But do know that criminals will want a piece of the pie, that they may be better suited to produce than we are, that all this supposed savings is likely a mirage (or merely the rearranging of expenses on a balance sheet), and the criminals don't all disappear because we legitimize what some deem necessary for personal diversion.

I'll repeat, I'm generally libertarian here, but not a piecemeal one. If we're going to free this activity, we'll need social insurance of sorts to let those who opt in to keep their vice to keep it to themselves on their own time and dime... entirely. With liberty comes responsibility and no promise of a safety net.

156 Previous efforts to legalize drugs like marijuana saw an increase in abuse. The National Families in Action found that during the decade when 11 states decriminalized marijuana, regular use tripled among adolescents, doubled among young adults, and quadrupled among older adults.

Theodore Dalrymple;
"I have personal experience of this effect. I once worked as a doctor on a British government aid project to Africa. We were building a road through remote African bush. The contract stipulated that the construction company could import, free of all taxes, alcoholic drinks from the United Kingdom. These drinks the company then sold to its British workers at cost, in the local currency at the official exchange rate, which was approximately one-sixth the black-market rate. A liter bottle of gin thus cost less than a dollar and could be sold on the open market for almost ten dollars. So it was theoretically possible to remain dead drunk for several years for an initial outlay of less than a dollar.

Of course, the necessity to go to work somewhat limited the workersÂ’ consumption of alcohol. Nevertheless, drunkenness among them far outstripped anything I have ever seen, before or since. I discovered that, when alcohol is effectively free of charge, a fifth of British construction workers will regularly go to bed so drunk that they are incontinent both of urine and feces."

In the 17th Century only the rich could afford the prohibitively priced strong drink of whiskeys and brandies, gin became the EverymansÂ’ drink. Gin was strong, cheap, easy to make, and everywhere. It was cheap because it was produced with the lowest quality grain, grain unfit even for brewing. Secondly gin was neither taxed nor controlled at all. The result was social devastation.

Egypt allowed unrestricted trade of cocaine and heroin in the 1920s. An epidemic of addiction resulted. This started in 1916, cocaine first being sold non-medically and shortly afterwards heroin. The price of the new narcotic was kept low to start with, until the vice had spread and caught large numbers of victims in its grip. There were even instances when contractors were paying their labourers with heroin. The vice spread to every class of Egyptian society and a new kind of slum was formed as the result of heroin addiction. The hygienic conditions among the addicts were often beyond description and all sorts of sicknesses followed in the wake of heroin. Thus a great epidemic of malignant malaria started among the addicts in 1928, spread by the hypodermic syringe, which was injected into one person to the other without being disinfected after the use. The total number of addicts in Egypt at the end of the 1920's has been estimated to half a million. Taking into consideration that the total population of Egypt at that time was about 14 million, the extent of the problem may be realized. That would be 10 million addicts is the US today.

By 1840 China’s opium addicts totaled 10 million. Lin Zexu, the Chinese High Commissioner of Canton, wrote to Queen Victoria complaining that Chinese customers spent 100 million taels annually (1 tael equaled 38 grams of silver) on opium, while the entire budget of the government was only 40 million taels. Insisting on a complete cessation of the drug traffic, he remarked, “There is a class of evil foreigner that makes opium and brings it for sale, tempting fools to destroy themselves, merely in order to reap profit.” TEMPTING FOOLS TO DESTROY THEMSELVES, MERELY IN ORDER TO REAP PROFIT! Who wouda thunk it?

While the Chinese were learning from painful experience about the high price of addiction, the English were learning about the benefits of being drug dealers. By 1870 almost 15 percent of the English national budget came from taxes on opium. By the time Japan invaded China during World War II, between 20 and 40 million Chinese, 10 percent of the entire population, were estimated to be addicted to opium. For British-controlled Hong Kong, the estimate is closer to 30 percent. Not until the Communist takeover in 1949 did things change significantly—and then only because of Mao’s ruthless policies. Dealers were executed. And although users were often treated humanely, many of them also were executed after relapsing.

The argument that widespread availability and government sanction would not lead to an increase in use is not borne out by experience. Not in China regarding opium, not in Russia regarding vodka, not in England regarding gin during the industrial revolution, and not in the US during the more permissive era of the 60's and 70's, regarding drug use in general.

The British system didn't work. Addiction levels rose, especially among teenagers, and many addicts chose to boycott the program and continued to get their heroin from pushers. In 1983, England began switching over to methadone and stopped dispensing heroin from the clinics, and that caused even more addicts to depart in favor of the real thing. According to the late John Kaplan of Stanford University, the number of addicts increased fivefold. James Q. Wilson states that the British Government's experiment with controlled heroin distribution resulted in, at a minimum, a 30fold increase in the number of addicts in ten years. Great Britain experimented with controlled distribution of heroin between 1959 and 1968. According to the British Medical Journal, the number of heroin addicts doubled every sixteen months and the increase in addicts was accompanied by an increase in criminal activity as well. And British authorities found that heroin addicts have a very good chance of dying prematurely. On the crime front, Scotland Yard had to increase its narcotics squad 100 percent to combat the crime caused by the "legal" addicts.

When most commodities become cheaper, more people use them, and those who used them before use more of them. This has been proven true with narcotics and other pleasure drugs. For instance, when crack was introduced in the mid-1980s, the price of cocaine dropped significantly, and the number of users nearly tripled as a result. New York authorities supported DuPont's research, stating the reduced prices also accompanied increases in the numbers of both new users and abusers of cocaine. Several studies show that the price of cigarettes-our most addictive drug-has a measurable impact upon consumption.

It is not a difficult concept to grasp: the higher the price, the less tobacco smoked.

157 Lloyd, generalizations are perfectly fine to make, as long as they are accurate.  In fact, if one can make no generalizations, then it is hard to argue for or against anything.  The real question is whether the generalization is true or not.

158 But even then, you mentioned those three as being the ones too destructive to keep legal.  What about prescription drugs?

Prescription drugs are already legal. My guess is that abuse of prescription drugs would drop like a rock if there were other legal outlets. Furthermore, I believe someone above already stated that his doctor friend/acquaintance would much rather prescribe marijuana for pain relief because of the lack of side effects relative to current prescription drugs.

And with that I would suspect lies one of the bigger opponents to drug legalization: the pharmaceutical industry.

159

It's already been said, but it bears repeating:

Legitimate businesses aren't going to sell anything stonger than weed, and they probably won't want to get in to that.

Why?  Lawsuits and regulations.

You think the bulk of the tobacco companies are making their green here?  Hells no.  They sell overseas to do that.  The only reason they continue in business here is because they cut a deal to not get sued any more in exchange for insane taxation.

You think Big Snort is gonna get the same deal when people start dropping dead from using too much Bolivian&reg; Nose Candy? The lawsuits are gonna fly.

Besides, given what I have to go through to get Sudafed, you think they're gonna pass up a chance to track every drug purchase?

On top of all that, Ace is right - crime won't drop one lick.  They'll simply turn to something else.  The only reason any of them goes legit after getting out of jail is because they do not want to go back. Those who've never been don't yet have sufficient motivation to stop chasing the easy dollar.

160 Ace, I generally support your thinking but not on this one.  With the huge profit motive gone that branch criminality dries up.  True, the current batch moves on to other criminal endevors but since pot is the largest generator of funds the whole system is hit hard.  Competition to sell other drugs means most distributors will have to find a different line of work.  True, kids shouldn't use drugs.  News Flash,  kids use drugs.  We have done little to nothing effective to stop them but we sure have enriched a lot of criminals.  Kids will have access to Marijuana from Mom and Dad stash. That's probably better than the current web of criminals supplying them.  If a criminal, even if he's a 16 year old gang member, sells a kid hard drugs up the penalty to 20 years, .  There will be plenty of room in the prisons once we take the profit out of that market.  If an adult wants to use any kind of drug, I could care less.  If he wants to inject battery acid in his arm, I don't care.  I just don't want a junkie dealing or stealing to get the money for an over priced product.  Personally, I would set up stores to practically give the shit away.  The only government money that should be spent is an education campaign to tell you you're a dumbass for using it. 

161 Lets not confuse decriminalization with legalization.  Under legalization, the drug dealers would simply be out of business*.  Why?  Because if I can just walk into a small coffee shop, or dispensary, or hell, perhaps a liquor store, and buy myself some OG Kush, why on Earth would I call some shady guy's beeper so that I can risk being robbed (or worse) just trying to buy something that's perfectly legal.

And as for the Mexican gangs controlling the pot fields, well, that's only because the Americans who were run out of the business of growing weed couldn't turn to law enforcement for protection against the Mexican gangs.  A certified legal grower, on the other hand, can call cops, or hire security for his crop with no legal worries.

* Okay, in truth they'd find a new criminal enterprise where they could make some real money, since there will be no more money left to be made in the underground pot trade.  But hey, they didn't say that this would make all criminals disappear overnight, did they?

162 >>> It seems indisputable that the Eighteenth Amendment significantly increased the number of people in crime (in various ways); it didn't just shuffle around a roughly-fixed pool of criminals. My point is that those criminals remained criminals post-prohibition. They just focused more on extortion, prostitution, smuggling in illegals, etc. While some became "laid-off" from crime and were forced to either work or get charity from a church, most stayed in crime. They just weren't in the rum-running segment of crime. Yes, prohibition turned the mob huge. But it STAYED huge after prohibition. It did not contract. It thrived for most of the decade. It was only in the eighties and nineties the mob began to be seriously rolled-back.

163 I love pot smokers who spin tales on the internet of there being a secret army of successful regular pot smokers. It's a fantasy. There's no data that I've seen to prove it. And all of my anecdotal evidence contradicts yours with a 1:1 correspondence.

164 Ace, I'm not sure why you use that against legalization?

Why continue to fee the new mafias being created with this new prohibition?

If it took so long to start the dismantling of the mafia, why not get started early as possible, by removing one of their largest revenue streams?

165 >>>Because if I can just walk into a small coffee shop, or dispensary, or hell, perhaps a liquor store, and buy myself some OG Kush, why on Earth would I call some shady guy's beeper so that I can risk being robbed (or worse) just trying to buy something that's perfectly legal. You will fund crime indirectly, because gangs and mobs will extort protection money from such sellers and demand they only buy from their monopoly cartel. Which is what happened post-prohibition. This is not a reason to oppose decriminalization. But it is a reason to doubt one proffered argument for decriminalization. All these indirect-effect arguments are very secondary. The basic question which will determine the issue is "Is pot so harmful as to require being criminalized in the first place?" I think the answer is "probably not." But let's not get silly about how we're going to increase revenues, decrease crime, and destroy the gangs and mob with this one change in the law. There are a lot of gray area businesses, either legal but disreputable or illegal but not really patrolled by cops, which the mob dominates. I'm told pornography is all mobbed-up, despite the fact that it's legal. The idea that the mob and gangs are just going to give over their terrotories to law-abiding citizens -- who are actually less of a threat than the armed enemy gangsters they usually deal with -- strikes me as terribly naive.

166 dan-O I bet you'd be surprised at how many of your friends and acquaintances are fine productive members of society that also indulge weekly or more.
They just don't tell you.
Posted by: JarvisW at May 06, 2009 07:39 PM (8yPsP)

Okay you are an idiot and I'm done discussing anything with you.  The merits of whether pot should be decriminalized should have nothing to do with whether I am hip to the secret Illuminati of pot smokers that you are alluding to.  But I guess I need to establish my street-cred by saying that I used to smoke everyday, and now I smoke occasionally with my friends.  And it is not a secret.  So yeah, I'm pretty sure I know who smokes weed and who doesn't amongst my friends.

167 Olaf, like I said, I bet there are more of your friends and acquaintances that smoke than tell you.

168
146: Posted by: dan-O at May 06, 2009 07:28 PM
Ace already addressed you first points with this blog post (did you read it?) so I'll skip those.

Yes he did, and I obviously disagree for the reasons I've stated.

Where do you get the idea that it would not increase drug use or that the usage of drugs would stay the same?

I've never heard anyone say to me that they refrain from using drugs because it is illegal, but would use them if it were legal.   Considering that the chances of being caught are so minimal, I can't see why anyone would be deterred.  The effects of cocaine and opiates is well enough known that few people go from using cannabis to harder drugs, and even fewer start out with them.

169 Ace,
You didn't address one of the primary less-crime arguments made.  When drugs are made to cost close to what it actually costs to make them and don't include costs associated with them being illegal, they're pretty cheap.  This argument probably applies mostly to harder drugs, but when what used to be a hundred dollar a day habit is now a two dollar a day habit, you'll see a lot less burglaries, robberies, and prostitution.  I would think that reduction of those activites would be way more impactful than the reduction in violence between drug dealers, at least where I live.  For all the moral righteousness of the drug war, it's encouraged a lot of people to become theives and prostitutes.

Also, making wheat illegal would give a place for otherwise criminals to do their thing without stealing from non-criminals, but there'd also be a lot of new criminals.  Some "criminals" distiguish selling a product to a consenting adult from robbing someone at gunpoint.

170 I'm just surprised that we're getting gay marriage in this country before nationwide drug legalization. Dave Attell was right. Potheads need to get out and affect society every night like drunks and homosexuals.

171 The mobs and gangs will continue taking money from the drug trade for at least 50 years, Jarvis. First they'll control the suppliers. If these get too big and too protected to dominate, they'll start taxing the middlemen and distributors. Again, look at the prohibition example that is always cited. Alcohol became legal -- and the mobs charged beer-distributors to supply the mob's old "territories."

172 Criminals aren't necessarily doing it to be rich; just to avoid the traditional responsibilities of life. Many of them are not rich by any means.

173 Are they productive?

You were the one using generalities. Thats all my point was going after.

174 Decriminalizing some drugs but leaving others as criminalized will also encourage pushers to hook people on stronger, still-illegal stuff. Not enough money in weed? Then push meth, or push whatever else is still criminalized. The worse the drug, the greater the chance it'll be criminalized and so the greater the profit.

They'll keep at it till they're stopped, so, if you wanna decriminalize, do it hand in hand with a war on organized crime, or don't do it at all. You'd have to be in it for the long haul, the generation or so it would take to get organized crime back under control.

This discussion all started with Arnie wanting to decriminalize some drugs just enough to raise more tax revenue to subsidize his oil-derrick police. But near-term, say for a decade or two, he'd more than eat up whatever he makes with increased policing costs. Either that or California becomes one big gangster territory. Or both.

175 anonymous drivel,

You failed to distinguish why the addictive quality of MJ would cause domestic crop growers to be susceptible to foreign growers' competition. Addiction is a factor in tobacco usage but we don't see significant foreign competition.

If RJR, Philip Morris and ATC were competing for the sale of MJ -- and they undoubtedly would -- then your premise is faulty. And it is.

Your argument about the elasticity of demand does not affect the competitive nature of a market for MJ if legalized.

Next attempt, if you please.

176 ras,

Your assumption is that will isn't so free.
We'll never agree.

177 "Is pot so harmful as to require being criminalized in the first place?"

I think the answer is "probably not."

But let's not get silly about how we're going to increase revenues, decrease crime, and destroy the gangs and mob with this one change in the law.

For sure. I agree, once again my main reason for legalization is PERSONAL FREEDOMS. Thats really it, the rest is just icing in a way (unless its taxed, which also violates my principles)

I'm just trying to point out some things that have been said are untrue.

178 Jarvis, although I'm not a pot smoker, I can tell you, for reasons similar to Dan's, that there is probably nobody I know who smokes pot without me knowing about it. I know a shit-ton of pot smokers. I have yet to meet a person who was both 1) successful and 2) a pot smoker, even though I know plenty of both. Furthermore, there's no reason for me to believe that there's a "silent majority" of some sort who meet conditions 1) and 2) above. It doesn't make a lick of rational sense that there would be.

179 Well, debatable at the least

I'm off to grab a beer! Check back later.

180 Well, last point I guess then...

The ones I know hold down full time jobs, and sometimes two. Several own their own houses, most have their own car. And most make over $30-40k a year, and are under 40.

That sounds productive to me.

181 Also, I'm kind of like Ace in that it's not really a hot-button issue for me. I really think that the arguments could use some sharpening, though.

182 That's some fucking weak reasoning right there Ace. It's always nice to get a reminder of why conservatives are only slightly(ok, I'm being hyperbolic) less deplorable than modern liberals. damn you constitution twisting, big government, nanny state supporters

183 >> Your assumption is that will isn't so free.
We'll never agree.

Nom, I think this is another important issue concerning legalization (especially of hard drugs).  Alcoholics (as in AA Alcoholics) talk about "addiction" as a disease and as though they have no control of it.  I think they go to far with that. 

But when it comes to "choosing" to do drugs that are very seductive and able to take you away from your problems momentarily, I think you would have to admit that the "choice" of whether to be a user or not is not the same as the "choice" that I made today of, say, putting on a red shirt.

184 JDubya @25

Spot on!
When I was younger I worked in a refinery and some of the shit I've seen stoners do for a bong hit would shrink Stalin's balls. Getting high on a LNG tank...Not rational.

Many years later I find myself the tired owner of a smallish metal products manufacturing plant and worry to no end about the liability and mortal danger stoned operators may subject me and their fellow employees to. Slow and baked doesn't cut it around lathes, Xylene, acid baths, and 30 ton presses. Anyone who says that pot doesn't impair mental coordination and motor skills is a peter-principled deskjockey and/or a cheeto-stained stoner.

 I already have to contend with the aggravating expense of random drug testing of 'cool people' and I shudder to think of what decriminalization or legalization would do to my insurance costs - not to mention the safety of machine operators, drivers, and installers in the field. Drug testing ain't cheap for small domestic manufacturers working within razor thin margins and OSHA is little more than protection racket, which is bad enough, but damn if I'm gonna let some unsafe libtardtarian jeopardize the safety and/or livelihoods of my employees, my customers, or I.

I can't even begin to wrap my head around the inevitability of the discrimination suit nightmare I'd likely have to contend with for firing or refusing to hire some  hemp T-shirt wearing potted plant asserting his/her legal right to a morning wake n bake.

185 Damn Sockpuppet.

186 Many drug users will tell you that the main psychological reason for going back to drugs is boredom. Putting up with the repetitive nature of life's stresses and drudgeries, or conversely, doing the work it takes to find creative ways of alleviating boredom is difficult. For some, it's damn near impossible once they find the easy way out. Drugs make people less productive. QED.

187 That's some fucking weak reasoning right there Ace. It's always nice to get a reminder of why conservatives are only slightly(ok, I'm being hyperbolic) less deplorable than modern liberals.

damn you constitution twisting, big government, nanny state supporters

Posted by: Ass of Catalonia

TANSTAAFL

If you expect the community to come to your defence regarding 'your rights' then you have a duty towards the community not to be a destructive element. Otherwise you are just a freeloader, letting others contribute while you reap the benefits.

188 dan-O,

I will not agree that "pushers (are able) to hook people on stronger, still-illegal stuff" without those choosing to partake. Free will is exercised at the time of the initial choice to do something or not. Unless someone is literally forced (or tricked as in date rape drugs) to do drugs they had the initial choice. The consequences from there are pretty clear.

I would never do coke. I've been in a room with two hot chicks who asked me to join them. I was pretty sure they would've let me enjoy more than just the drugs but I said no. And I left the room. That was when I was 21 but I knew the likely results would be either 1) life long addiction, 2) death or 3) no addiction (very rare) so I wouldn't go there. And that was with a three-some in which the chicks were into each other on the line.

So I'll stand by my free will argument.

189 You know that the US Constitution is the most subversive document in history. You should read it sometime. It really doesn't say what you seem to think it says.

190

156:  Posted by: Travis at May 06, 2009 07:43 PM

Thank you for that post.  I'm not entirely convinced, as I think price and availability are much more important than legality and illegal drugs now are fairly cheap and readily available.  Your statistics on the UK, for instance, ignore that prescription heroin had been available since the 190's, yet there were still only 94 registered addicts in 1960.  By 1968, there were still only 2240.  A large percentag3e increase to be sure, but still a small number.

In the US, there were 50,000 addicts in 1960 and 500,000 by 1970.  This in spite of the US not having significantly relaxed drug laws. 

191

169 Posted by: scott at May 06, 2009 07:55 PM

when what used to be a hundred dollar a day habit is now a two dollar a day habit, you'll see a lot less burglaries, robberies, and prostitution. 

Based on my experience with crack addicts, it just means they'll use more.  One argument I don't buy is that legalization would make addicts much less likely to commit crimes.  For that matter, I don't think criminalization has had much effect on their behavior in that way either.

192 Nom,

Yeah, I think I would mostly agree with you about the pushers thing.  But just concerning greater availability of the stuff in general (especially hard stuff), I think that the free will thing is not as black and white.  For example, I have never done coke, and would definitely not if someone offered it to me right now.  But if I was drunk hanging out with 2 hot chicks who were doing it and then wanted to "party"... I don't know.  I'd like to say that I wouldn't, but under huge amounts of pressure and temptation, I have certainly caved before.

193 dave aaa @ 191:

I agree completely with that.  I think that the crime that crackheads commit has less to do with the price of crack and more to do with the fact that they are crackheads.

194 In the US, there were 50,000 addicts in 1960 and 500,000 by 1970.  This in spite of the US not having significantly relaxed drug laws. 

Posted by: dave aaa

The laws in 1970 were not being enforced as much as they had been in the less progressive year of 1960, so that is a factor as well as societal changes.

BTW, there were 400,000 opium addicts in the US in the mid 1800's with a significantly lower population. Laws against opium had to be passed to roll back the problem.

195 When you ask yourself, how do we put drug dealers out of business, What Would Obama Do?

196

The whole decriminalization thing has worked out so well for European nations that SURE, we should climb aboard.

The me, what is most offensive is that all arguments about public health and welfare go out the window just so long as we can make money in the process.

Who the hell ever really expected the Ahnold to be worth a damn in office?

Oh. And a link about the success of decriminalization in other countries.

197 Travis:

In general, legalisation will probably increase use of a drug. However, appropriately regulated legalisation will also reduce direct and indirect harm from a typical use of a drug; it will tend to visit the harm more on the user and less on non-users; and it will limit the increase in use and specially protect certain vulnerable groups (especially children). This is just what the British licensing laws have succeeded in doing about the gin problem. As to the British heroin, problem, the relative numbers are somewhat misleading. In 1968 (after a breakdown of appropriate control over heroin prescription, and several years of '60s drug-craziness) there were a couple of thousand heroin addicts in Britain; after decades of increasing criminalisation there are now a few tens of thousands of heroin addicts in Britain.

198 if the government would stay the hell out of ppl lives, society has a way of sorting these things out, the problem yet again is the government trying to enforce one view over another, it never works, the government can not produce social results, that is not it's proper role and the Founders knew that.

199

I get a big kick out of the legalization crowd.

If you listen to them, legalizing will stop crime, erase the debt and bring American families back together again. 

In reality, the only reason they want it legalized is to get stoned without having to worry about the complications of breaking the law.  They want easy access to their recreation of choice without interference by the man.

If it's a freedom thing, or a crime-prevention thing, you really can't argue this solely about pot.  You have to bring heavy-hitters like crack and meth to the plate. 

In terms of crime, pot's really a non-issue.  People don't break into houses to get their next fix of mj.  Or rape and kill your mom while holding their bong.  Jails simply aren't overcrowded with casual pot smokers.  Police simply aren't at the breaking point dealing with pot smokers.  It's the insanely addictive substances that drive these problems. 

Really, legalizing pot will probably have next to zero impact on reducing crime, or producing revenue.  It's the drugs that people need to survive that that fuels this fire.

Unless we realize that these arguments are simply a front to make it easier to light up, we're getting nowhere in this discussion. 

200 Nom de Blog: "You failed to distinguish why the addictive quality of MJ would cause domestic crop growers to be susceptible to foreign growers' competition..."

The difference between tobacco and marijuana is not the qualitative addiction of the product (assuming THC content remains equal in domestic versus foreign stash) but the actual manufacturing of it -- marijuana is easier to grow, perhaps moreso, elsewhere around the globe. Those foreign sources have lower costs of production. Their labor is cheaper. Their government oversight and consequent expense is lower. Their litigation would be comparably miniscule. IOW, they can produce a cheaper product than we can despite our classical agricultural advantage. What will they do with that high volume, low cost output? Seek markets wherever they exist. What is currently the most premium market? The U.S.A. It will remain thus whether legal or illegal or until China becomes the dominant economic engine with a constituency flush with freedom and disposable income.

If Big Pharma is permitted under American law to produce consumable product, its costs, across the board, will remain comparatively higher regardless of any extra sales tax/user fees imposed. That is an opening for criminality via counterfeiting. Not only will shareholders want prices to remain high, production costs will remain higher compared to overseas mfgs no matter what. Big Pharma won't lobby to force prices down as much as it will lobby the Feds to become... wait for it... enforcers of the market. They'll insist that the law be followed so that their market is not undercut by black market smuggling or counterfeiting. They'll reinvite oversight via govenment to ensure their relative domestic monopoly continues.

The price pressure downward to make an affordable product, assuming no domestic collusion occurs, will be met with the price pressure upward to optimize profit in an industry where competition can do it for less. If the market is protected such that non-sanctioned product cannot enter the country, illegal imports will occur. Again. Now it's possible that the U.S government could open the market up wholly, but I don't see that happening. It will remain a controlled market only it will be the Feds skimming and Big Pharma lobbying and manipulating. A free market it will not be and the addictive nature of the product will ensure that a steady stream of consumers continues. More than tobacco? I dunno.

As far as elasticity, I don't know how wide it is. It would depend on the collective addictive condition of a given population were it to have complete freedom to sample an addicitve substance. More than tobacco which is quite addictive? Less? I dunno. The point is that an increasingly large population would become addicted to a product that is manifestly more expensive than tobacco, would remain addicted to an increasingly expensive product even if efficiencies of scale came about, and would remain addicted to a drug that would be artificially inflated in price compared to that made by foreign producers. Can Big Tobacco transition over to mass produce an essentially free drug? Absolutely not and surely not cheaper than that producable elsewhere.

201 Posted by: jmflynny

Friend of mine was in Switzerland at the time and saw the park there with the druggies. It was a total shithole and apparently became something of a tourist attraction for people who wanted to see that sort of thing. Sort of 'look at the pathetic stoners' kind of thing.

202

#93...I think the better option would just be to lock all the stoners up somewhere in the middle of Nevada and air drop them all the dope they could ever want and enough food and water to get by and let them party themselves to death.

When is the Burning Man Festival?

Couldn't we just quickly and quietly erect a giant fence around them the next time they assemble?

203 The government runs gambling operations and taxes the shit out of any winnings, as well as not offering credit.  Ergo, the mob is still running numbers and bookies are still taking bets on sporting events. 

The mob doesn't take any tax out of winnings.
The mob's payoffs for numbers are much better than govt run lottery.
The mob lets you run a tab, the government doesn't.
The mob will send a runner right to your door to deliver winnings or collect for losses.  The government doesn't offer home delivery.

Advantage: mob

Why the idiots don't understand the same principle will apply to drug dealers is a mystery to me.

204 We have a situation where you can't smoke anywhere indoors, you can't smoke in outdoor stadiums, outdoors in college campuses, in your own car with your kids, in your own apartment, soon you won't be able to smoke anywhere unless you own the property and nobody will be within a 1-mile radius in the following three years.

You can't buy Sudafed without signing over your life...

And they want to legalize pot?  Seriously?

205

199: Posted by: 12thMonkey at May 06, 2009 08:47 PM

I get a big kick out of the legalization crowd.

If you listen to them, legalizing will stop crime, erase the debt and bring American families back together again. 

In reality, the only reason they want it legalized is to get stoned without having to worry about the complications of breaking the law.

I suppose some people are making that argument for those reasons.  I know I'm not.  I don;t think it's a panacea, and I don't use drugs.  Indeed, my experience seeing drug addicxts in action makes it even less likely than every that I will.

206

Ace,

That arguement doesn't work because the central premise is faulty.  If decriminalization occurred, the type of dealers you are thinking of would be dispaced.  Just as individuals selling homemade liquor are few and confined to a minimal number of locales, so would private marijuana sales.

Hhmm, so, there's a newly-legalized product with a massive built-in market who are used to paying inflated prices for a small amount of the product?  Don't you believe JR Reynolds or Philip Morris, or any number of existing companies with already operating distribution networks might be interested?

Just as Seagram's, et al, now sell 99.9% of liquor in the US, so would it be with weed...and those companies pay taxes. 

207 AnonymousDrivel,

What you just typed is complete horse shit. Tobacco farmers in NC and VA would outproduce manufacturers elsewhere with great ease.

The efficiencies of the large tobacco farms translates quite easily.

And where the hell does Big Pharma come into this discussion? RJR, Philip Morris and ATC would corner the weed market in a skinny fucking minute.

208

Posted by: AmishDude at May 06, 2009 08:54 PM (bZ9KY)

 

LOL

Seriously, it's just about being able to get high when and how they want.  Nothing to do with raising revenue or stopping crime.

Nothing.  Because legalizing pot won't do either.

It's like global warming crowd saying they want to save the earth... but the reality is they just want a socialized America. 

The legalization crowd is about legalization for themselves, not any other faniciful reason. 

209 the problem isn't addictive drugs, they have been around for thousands of years and have yet to be the death of us, the problem is government control of said addictive drugs, whether through prohibition or market control. if the government stayed out of it all together we have and would again survive and florish, not because everyone would be free to do all the drugs they want but because they would simply be free.

210 12th Monkey,

Some of us actually believe in freedom in all its manifestations.
But you should be sure to write us all off as potheads.
Well played.

211 However, appropriately regulated legalisation will also reduce direct and indirect harm from a typical use of a drug; it will tend to visit the harm more on the user and less on non-users...

Posted by: anonymous irishman

How is this appropriate legislation going to accomplish this miracle? The gin mills in Britain were largely contained by price increases(which prohibition does) and nosey bible-thumpers on a crusade against 'devil drink'.

First, drug abuse is not a victimless crime. The abused children, the crack babies and battered spouses are all victims. The innocent citizens who are assaulted, raped and murdered are victims because drugs affect self-control and normal thought processes, increase aggressiveness and impulsiveness, and release inhibitions in the user. The motorist killed by a drugged driver is a victim. Drug abuse is not a victimless crime, and herein lies the first of their three points. Job productivity and effectiveness is greatly decreased when the worker is under the influence of narcotics or other drugs.

An increase in use under legalization would mean a decrease in productivity and effectiveness. The second of these points is that families are destroyed by drug use, and the increase in use would inevitably mean an increase in destroyed families. Thirdly, while prenatal medical care to babies of drug-using mothers can benefit them and make their lives slightly better, no amount of prenatal medical care can make up for having a baby affected by drug use. Illicit drug use is not a victimless crime because the user, his family, and society suffer social and economic costs. For example, drug use by pregnant mothers causes in utero damage to the child. It increases the risk of mortality threefold and the risk of low birth weight fourfold. Drug abuse is a key factor in most child abuse cases. In Philadelphia, cocaine is implicated in half of the cases in which parents beat their children to death, and in 80 percent of all abuse cases.

In the nation's capital, 90 percent of reported child abusers are also illicit drug abusers. IN NEARBY MARYLAND, ONE-THIRD OF ALL CAR ACCIDENTS INVOLVE DRIVERS WHO TEST POSITIVE FOR MARIJUANA.

I have personal knowledge of how drug users act. It isn't rational. He beat his mother unconscious because she got upset with him for stealing FROZEN STEAKS from their fridge and selling them for drug money. She was hospitalized and died a month later.

How the fuck do you reduce the cost of drugs below that of FROZEN STEAKS? How is legalizing drugs going to stop this sort of worthless shit? How many of them do you want on your block?

212 If decriminalization occurred, the type of dealers you are thinking of would be dispaced.  Just as individuals selling homemade liquor are few and confined to a minimal number of locales, so would private marijuana sales.

Posted by: LexisTexas

Your right! They wouldn't sell marijuana. They would sell new designer drugs, crack and meth. Wonderful improvement that!

What they wouldn't do is go quietly into the night looking for that new exciting job flipping burgers at McDonald's given their skill set.

213

Don't you believe JR Reynolds or Philip Morris, or any number of existing companies with already operating distribution networks might be interested?

Posted by: LexisTexas at May 06, 2009 08:58 PM (Vt8uv)

Not to be mean, but you're out of your mind if you think legitimate companies will touch this stuff.

You really think you'll be able to stroll down to your corner Walgreens and pick up weed?  Not in your lifetime.  The stigma that's attached, not to mention the legal issues, will simply not make this a mainstream retail product, no matter how much you may hope.  Thirty, forty years?  Maybe. 

Til then, don't hold your breath. 

214 Travis,

If more dealers enter the crack and meth market, prices will necessarily fall. And therefore fewer people will have incentives to join the dealer cohort. And thus some of the people who now deal will move to other options.

But don't trouble your pretty little head with cause or effect.

215 Nom de Blog, here's the deal:  You get rid of the welfare state and then we'll talk about drug legalization.

This is almost literally the cart before the horse.  In both cases the horse will be a stumbling, confused wreck, of no use to anyone.

But you can't make glue out of potheads.

Wait...then again, we might have a compromise here...

216 12th Monkey,

Way to hold a conversation by ignoring the starting premise: legalization.
"The stigma that's attached, not to mention the legal issues" no longer applies.

Are you trying to miss the point?

217 211 12th Monkey,

Some of us actually believe in freedom in all its manifestations.
But you should be sure to write us all off as potheads.
Well played.

Posted by: Nom de Blog at May 06, 2009 09:04 PM (fnU+z)

All right, fine.  Then let's go to the table with everything then.

Freedom means meth and crack at your corner drug store too, in your world.  Let's at least be up front about it. 

 

218 I'm all for getting rid of the welfare state.
(By that I mean anything beyond a minimalist "safety net" designed to help those who suffer ill fortune for a very limited period of time.)

That's a different argument entirely.

219 12th Monkey,

Your freedom to swing your fist stops at my nose.
That little bromide still holds some truth.

When you are beyond your own ability to control your own fist by your own decisions, then you sacrifice the freedom to swing your fist altogether.
Thus, I can easily distinguish those drugs that render a person incapable of rational thought.

Weed isn't one of those drugs.

220 Nom de Blog: "Tobacco farmers in NC and VA would outproduce manufacturers elsewhere with great ease."

Hyperbole. The globe is a mighty big place. Open up the American market and watch capital and labor fly and watch it fly further in the third world where growing a weed is just as easy. Nevertheless, you're again ignoring the fact that weed is readily growable. If there was a monopoly of aerable and suitable land in NC and VA, you'd have a point. So, you don't.


NdB: "And where the hell does Big Pharma come into this discussion? RJR, Philip Morris and ATC would corner the weed market in a skinny fucking minute."

The terms "Big Pharma" and "Big Tobacco" would be essentially interchangeable. It would depend on how the Feds decide to regulate the product. Is it really an agricultural product or is it a controlled drug delivery system? The subsequent legal risk and obligations inherent in this particular product make that somewhat semantic parsing and nothing more. They might even merge depending on the competing interests creating this new market.

221 jmflynny:

And a link about the success of decriminalization in other countries.

The link didn't improve my opinion of the DEA, I have to say.

The park has been shut down and the experiment has been terminated.

Oddly the article fails to mention that after the failure of the park experiment,the Swiss opted for a controlled heroin maintenance program which had been a success over many years of trials. (Given that "success" in heroin policy is always relative.)

222 If more dealers enter the crack and meth market, prices will necessarily fall. And therefore fewer people will have incentives to join the dealer cohort. And thus some of the people who now deal will move to other options.

But don't trouble your pretty little head with cause or effect.
Posted by: Nom de Blog

Drug dealers offer their product for free. They don't do this because they are swell guys! They do this because it is in their economic best interest to do so.

A greater number of addicts translates to greater sales for them. As has been pointed out the market for hard drugs will expand as it has every time legalisation has taken place. Simple economics. Volume sales mean increased profits even if at a reduced profit margin. Crack cocaine is a case in point and contrary to your fantasy world, the New York of this world actually has experience with it. For instance, when crack was introduced in the mid-1980s, the price of cocaine dropped significantly, and the number of users nearly tripled as a result. New York authorities supported DuPont's research, stating the reduced prices also accompanied increases in the numbers of both new users and abusers of cocaine.

The profit margins for drugs BTW are not as great as most people imagine. For cocaine it is around 95% for street sellers which is the same as Prozac. Booze is around 72%.

223

Travis,

Even if they were forced to sell crack or meth, their revenue would take a huge hit (so to speak) since pot accounts for much more revenue than any other drug, and just because they sell it doesn't mean the market exists for such increased production, nor that new crack addicts would be created--what? did you think because dealers were forced to sell crack their marketing efforts would get better?

And in any case, those revenues lost in decriminalization would stay in the US, would cease propping up Mexico, create jobs and increase tax revenue.

Nom de blog is correct.  The tobacco companies are currently able to deliver cigarettes daily to all 50 states, they have the transportation and warehousing in place, and the same packaging used in cigarettes could be used for pot.  It would take minimal costs on their part.  Additionally, they already have the fields and could easily convert them to marijuana.  Many other farmers selling rutabagas or peppers would also likely switch which would flood the market and drive down prices, making it impossible for illegal dealers to compete.

And it's untrue that a significant amount of police resources are not spent in enforcing and convicting pot user and dealers--these societal costs would be eliminated.

224

Posted by: Nom de Blog at May 06, 2009 09:12 PM (fnU+z)

You don't think there will be stigma, after years of illegality?  You really think Walgreens and CVS will be stocking this a month after legalization? Moms across the country will be boycotting like you wouldn't believe.  Seriously.  You can't see that?

And there will be legal issues. Big retailers would be nuts to jump into the fray and start selling.  "The weed that CVS sold me caused my emphasema!"  "I'm hooked for life thanks to Target!"  "Walgreen's bud ruined my life!"

Really... you've never heard of lawyers?  This will be a mess, and fresh meat for the court system. 

225

210: Posted by: Travis at May 06, 2009 09:04 PM

How the fuck do you reduce the cost of drugs below that of FROZEN STEAKS? How is legalizing drugs going to stop this sort of worthless shit? How many of them do you want on your block?

I think you're making one of my points here.  Illegal drugs, including addictive drugs, are already so cheap and available that they can be bought with trivial amounts of money.

226

Yes more weed.  Just as all people can imbibe alcohol so it follows that alcohol doesn't render people irrational.  Right?

I love those folks who can tell us how drugs can impact on every individual.   To have such wisdom and insight!

 

Great analysis and article but we are a corrupt society with weak people too greedy and without self control or virtue so we see a steady barbarization of society.   Drugs are required for the dullards, the weak of character and mind.  But society is unwilling to do what it must to rid itself of these corrupt individuals and weakening influences.

This is the price we pay for a humane society where sin is tolerated and self indulgence is not detested but lionized.

227 I think you're making one of my points here.  Illegal drugs, including addictive drugs, are already so cheap and available that they can be bought with trivial amounts of money.
Posted by: dave aaa

And legalising them would increase the market for drugs with more addicts and more dead mothers and children. I'll pass.

228 218 I'm all for getting rid of the welfare state.
(By that I mean anything beyond a minimalist "safety net" designed to help those who suffer ill fortune for a very limited period of time.)

That's a different argument entirely.

Really?  Really?  A different argument entirely?

I'm willing to guess that your idea of minimalist is subject to a wide interpretation.  Because the suffering of ill fortune for a very limited period of time was the camel's nose that brought us the situation we're in today.

Here's the deal.  If you want to live in a libertarian paradise, you have to go whole hog, otherwise, you'll be subsidizing irresponsibility and unproductivity.

They will smoke too much, or take too much meth or snort too much coke and voila, that will be a bit of temporary ill fortune that I'll be paying for.

229 Thus, I can easily distinguish those drugs that render a person incapable of rational thought.

Posted by: Nom de Blog at May 06, 2009 09:16 PM (fnU+z)

Sorry... I wan't up to date on Nom de Blog's Book of Allowable Freedoms. 

Pot=good. 

The rest of that crap=bad.

The reason you want pot legalized is because you like it.  It has nothing to do with freedom. 

Again, let's have an honest discussion. 

I know folks who swear coke is groovy for casual social use.  Just heightens the evening.  Not nearly as addictive as people think.

My ex-girlfriend had a sister who did meth on what she considered was a "casual" basis.  Honestly, it didn't jack up her life the way you would think.

All of these people see the same distinction you do... only they draw the line in different places. 

Again, just be honest why you've drawn the line where you have.

I like the line where it is.  Let's fight like we mean it. 

230

This is the price we pay for a humane society where sin is tolerated and self indulgence is not detested but lionized.

Posted by: Thomas Jackson

That is in essence, the entire problem in a nutshell.

231

PS...

Is it possible to quote or copy and paste without those damn lines? 

I used to be able to do it....

232 Dude...the quoting lines...they're so colorful...

233 AnonymousDrivel,
The advantages wouldn't be simply in growing the weed. But curing it, rolling it and distributing it matter. And NC and VA do have the infrastructure to mass produce weed today. And their advantages are just as large in weed as tobacco. Your claims are extravagant nonsense if mine are hyperbole.

"Drug dealers offer their product for free. They don't do this because they are swell guys! They do this because it is in their economic best interest to do so." -- Travis above
You'll please cite where I suggested otherwise. If not, then I assume your straw man burned exactly as you planned.
Yes, prices would go down. That means fewer dealers which was the point of Ace's initial post and everything else I wrote. Your argument about a greater number of users is an argument you're having by yourself. Please do your best to keep up.

12th Monkey,
Keep up. I am an attorney. But with proper warning labels I don't think there'd be a significant case. New smokers, for example, will not win lawsuits.

Thomas Jackson,
I too believe in the imperfectability of man. Exactly what bearing that has on the current conversation escapes me. Perhaps you have a newsletter to which I could subscribe.

234

PS...

Is it possible to quote or copy and paste without those damn lines? 

I used to be able to do it....

Posted by: 12thMonkey

I think if you paste it into a text editor (not Word) and then re-paste it, the lines go away. I use EditPad Lite and it works.

235 @231,

Weird. I've never incorporated those lines during a copy/paste. I'd say use the source button of the comment box ( <> ) to edit content, but there has to be another way.

How about when you copy the HTML text, paste it to your operating system notepad first and edit that if you get stray characters. Then, copy the notepad text and paste that into the comment box.

236 Amish Dude,
Are all the slopes so slippery in your mathematicians mind?

12th Monkey,
I see you are unreasonable. You assume I'm a pot head. Fair enough. Fuck you sideways.

237 Some of us actually believe in freedom in all its manifestations.
But you should be sure to write us all off as potheads.
Well played.
Posted by: Nom de Blog at May 06, 2009 09:04 PM (fnU+z)

Wow, Nom de Blog, I hate to hose you, but this is basically one of the reasons that the legalization fans annoy me.  12th Monkey is wrong, it isn't all pot smokers who support legalization.  A large part of the legalization fans are people who have a chip on their shoulder because "they love personal freedom more than you do".  The hip, uber-libertarian.

I'm pretty sure that you actually don't "believe in freedom in all its manifestations" Nom, unless you are an anarchist.  The reason laws exists is to take freedom away from people.  That's what they do.  Because some actions are so detrimental to society that people should not be allowed to do them.  Obvious example: murder. 

Many people make the case that drug use, especially hardcore drug use, is one of these things that are detrimental to society.  And even if you disagree with that, I think you would have to at least respect that opinion.  It has little to do with how much one "loves personal freedoms".

238 Amish Dude,
To be fair a private system of insurance could provide the safety net I envision. Perhaps you'd be happy with that and let people who plan poorly suffer the full consequences if they didn't invest in insurance. Fair enough, I suppose.

I'd be with you except there are externalities. Watching somebody suffer does have a cost for most people. That's one of the reasons we have a welfare state, I imagine.

239
Yes, prices would go down. That means fewer dealers which was the point of Ace's initial post and everything else I wrote. Your argument about a greater number of users is an argument you're having by yourself. Please do your best to keep up.

Posted by: Nom de Blog

You clearly haven't the slightest idea about economics!

A mass market creates a greater number of suppliers (DEALERS) not less. Henry Ford created a mass market for LOWER PRICED automobiles and the result was greater sales volume as well as MORE automotive DEALERS.

Get a clue fer Christ sake!

240 Travis,

I don't have time to say much more, but I will say this. Please don't misunderstand my earlier comment. When it comes to, say, heroin policy "success" is always a matter of degrees of failure.

241 dan-O,

I checked on my give-a-shit meter. It didn't move when I read "this is basically one of the reasons that the legalization fans annoy me." If you don't want a reasonable discussion, I won't offer one.

Are you really going to try to lecture me on why murder is illegal? You're going to lecture me on the law? And the reasons behind the law? Could you at least use some big words so I'm getting my money's worth?

Republicans love to use the law to proscribe one set of freedoms. That bothers me.
Democrats love to use the law to proscribe a largely different set of freedoms. That bothers me too.

242 When it comes to, say, heroin policy "success" is always a matter of degrees of failure.
Posted by: anonymous irishman

That I certainly agree with. There are no good answers in that regard.

243 The biggest misunderstanding about any decriminalization of pot is that it won't make it legal to go to work or do various things stoned any more than one can go to work drunk.

 In fact, once decriminalized, you can be required to take pot tests upon request without any backup of self incrimination since being stoned on pot would no longer necessarily be illegal -- it might just be not permitted by your employer...  

  So go ahead, legalize it, collect the taxes and expect the a lot of work place to adapt with stricter work rules -- which could be applied to welfare too...  

244

227 Posted by: Travis at May 06, 2009 09:28 PM

And legalising them would increase the market for drugs with more addicts and more dead mothers and children. I'll pass.

Clearly, this is where we disagree.  You say legalizing drugs would significantly increase availability and decrease cost.  I say it wouldn't significantly increase availability, if at all, as they're already as available as one could wish, and they're already pretty cheap.

Cost is also an issue that can be handled.  If the natural price of legal drugs is low enough to be a problem, the price can be increased though taxes, as it is for tobacco, until it just below the point where bootlegging them becomes profitable.

245 Travis,
When prices of a product go down we get a greater number of suppliers?
Really?
That's what you have to offer the conversation?

Are you sure?
And you'd like to lecture me on economics?

246

12th Monkey,
I see you are unreasonable. You assume I'm a pot head. Fair enough. Fuck you sideways.

Posted by: Nom de Blog at May 06, 2009 09:40 PM (fnU+z)

All right.

But I'm still not convinced that your line... Pot... is any better than the line that the "casual" cocaine user or "casual" meth user would draw.

You're obviously convinced, but a lot of us out here see alcohol as a significant problem, and don't see the advantage to adding more fuel to the fire. 

Additional government revenue and reduction in crime is nonsense, unless you think pot really drives crime in this country, or will be sold in WalMart like Hershey bars. 

If you do, well, I'm not sure how you can continue your argument with a straight face.

247
"SEE, FOR EXAMPLE: There is very little illegal running of liquor in the United States post-Prohibition. The idea that the Budweiser of Pot or the Jack Daniels of Weed wouldn't push out the illegal actors is silly."

SEE, FOR EXAMPLE: Las Vegas. Gambling is legal, but organized crime has not folded up its tents and faded away. Quite the contrary.

Liquor is a bad example, because there were legitimate channels of manufacture and distribution before prohibition, and prohibition itself lasted a relatively short time - 13 years, start to finish. Once the ban was lifted, those legitimate businessmen reasserted themselves. With pot, though, criminals control the growing and distribution, both wholesale and retail. The notion that they'll somehow just step aside and let legal competitors drain away their extremely lucrative business is naive.

248 12th Monkey,
Please kindly point to where I've typed alcohol does not cause a great many problems in society. If you can't find it, then I must assume you're conversing with yourself.

If we remove the illegality, I have no doubt pot would be available behind the counter of most convenience stores. The moral qualms of the 7-11 owners would be overridden by the profit motive, I feel sure.

But I'm fine simply disagreeing on that point. No harm, no foul.

249

237: Posted by: dan-O at May 06, 2009 09:43 PM

Many people make the case that drug use, especially hardcore drug use, is one of these things that are detrimental to society. 

So is alcohol use.  We tried using criminalization to address it, and it didn't work.  Criminalization isn't working for drugs either.

250 Nom, chill, I'm trying to be cool here.  I'm pointing out that when you say:

Some of us actually believe in freedom in all its manifestations

it is not a reasonable argument.  Because you obviously don't believe in that.  And talking down to those that don't think legalization is a good idea in such a passive aggressive way is not having a reasonable discussion.

251

12th Monkey,

Your painting with a pretty wide brush. 

1) When a criminal act is decriminalized then the act of doing same is no longer a crime, so crime is reduced.  I don't think anyone has argued it would "stop" crime.

2) If you can plant your supply in your yard or a flower pot it is pretty difficult to tax it and balance the budget.  Any serious thinking person is arguing  that.  I know I don't.

3) Bring families together again. Huh?

4) I smoked a little in my twenties,grew up raised a family and lived the middle class life.  Coffee and Scotch are my drugs of choice.  I 'm not interested in legalizing drugs to get  "stoned."  In fact, I only passingly care about the issue for intellectual reasons.

5)As 80% of the drug revenue generated in this country is derived from marijuana, I suspect a lot of that money goes to organized crime and or gangs.  Plenty of violent crime there.

There are legitimate arguements against legalization, like the guy who is concerned about job safety or the raft of liability issues but not the ones you listed.

252

Don't know if this has been asked:

Who would be the authority over pot?  Today's pot is laced with all sorts of things, from other illegal drugs, to leagal drugs, to flavors.  There are many different types of pot.  Where would the over see come from?  Would you have to give your info to buy it like you do Sudafed? Or, would you have to show more ID than Obama did to become President?  How the hell would you tax it?  If it it legal, you can't ban people from growing a legal plant.  If a person is prescribed it for pain, you can't tax that either.  So, you are in line at the pot palace and 1st guy pays 10 bucks, the second guy gets the very same thing and he pays 30 bucks.  Yeah, that will go over well with the stonners.

253 Brown Line,
The power of the mob against the power of RJR, Philip Morris and ATC is a battle the mob would not engage.

The path of least resistance would lead elsewhere.

254 "Or, would you have to show more ID than Obama did to become President?" -- momma above

LOL!
I'll take the over.

255

A mass market creates a greater number of suppliers (DEALERS) not less.

Not necessarily true.  For example how many "dealers" sell beer?  There are a limited number of large sellers and many small, specialty vendors but the market always remains relatively stable.  Supply and price would dictate the number of dealers because the market is limited--markets don't expand to accomodate the number of available dealers.

A large part of the legalization fans are people who have a chip on their shoulder because "they love personal freedom more than you do".  The hip, uber-libertarian.
Instead of the ad-hominems and informal fallacies, couldn't it just be that the economic argument makes sense?

256 dan-O,

I know there are trade-offs between competing freedoms. We could have that debate. But a large proportion of the side that thinks pot must stay illegal will not admit the obvious costs of their preferred policy. They believe they fight on the side of the angels.

And that is something to which I cannot hold.

257 dave aaa @249:

yep, agreed about alcohol.  And the same thing with cars actually (how many car accident fatalities a year)?  So we need to balance the issues in our minds.  I think the reason pot is such a hot issue is because it is so close that it is hard to balance.

258 "A mass market creates a greater number of suppliers (DEALERS) not less." -- Travis above with thanks to LexisTexas for highlighting it

Are you arguing there is not a mass market for drugs currently?
I really do want that newsletter.

259 A friend....yeah, a friend....that's it.... tells me that it was always easier to buy pot than alcohol when he was in high school. A pot dealer is already breaking the law, incentivized by a high profit margin. Breaking another one by selling to a minor doesn't alter the equation all that much. An alcohol dealer has a license to protect, and his profit margin is smaller. Much less incentive to break the law by selling to a minor.

260 And you'd like to lecture me on...

Posted by: Nom de Blog

Pretty much the same silly nonsense I lectured my 12 year old niece on.

"You're not the boss of me!" was her and your response. I will wait the requisite number of years for you to grow up before I attempt any further lectures.

I assume of course that you are a libertarian as your sort of profound ignorance, constitutional references, and wilful childishness is not normally found elsewhere.

261 Ace, like somebody said upthread, replace "chronic" with "booze" in your post and you'll see just how profoundly silly it sounds. I love ya, man, but this is just way off the mark.

262

I really wish I knew how many Congressmen hit the pipe.  No, morons, I am NOT talking about Barney Frank.

263 CTD: of course you are assuming that the two are interchangeable. 

264

Not necessarily true.  For example how many "dealers" sell beer?  There are a limited number of large sellers and many small, specialty vendors but the market always remains relatively stable.  Supply and price would dictate the number of dealers because the market is limited--markets don't expand to accomodate the number of available dealers.

Posted by: LexisTexas

But the dealers do expand to meet the demands of the market. More drug users would mean more dealers to accommodate them.

If beer was reduced to 10 cents a bottle then I assure you consumption would increase. The problem comes when the profit margin shrinks or disappears.

265 Travis,
I'm a lowly college professor of law with a couple of advanced degrees for shits and giggles: finance and international trade. But your understanding of economics has me riveted. I simply cannot wait for you to tell me all about these fascinating and until now, darned nigh impossible to fathom subjects.

Please. Proceed.

266 Lots of intelligent, articulate, highly educated, productive and responsible adults use marijuana regularly and to no ill effect. I know politicians, doctors, teachers, and tradesmen who smoke and who lead otherwise respectable lives. Pot-smokers harm no one; no more than drinkers or tobacco users do. Leave us the fuck alone to kick back with a spliff if that's what we choose to do on our own time and in the privacy of our homes. Legalizing weed would make most potheads no more prone to going to work high than the legalization of alcohol makes people prone to go to work drunk.

LEGALIZE NOW!

267 "Personally, I am in favor of anything that will leave a large percentage of the moonbat population stoned on their couches on election day." THIS. You know, its illegal for people to BUY votes with money or cigs. But would it be illegal to drive around on election day handing out dime bags of dope with DVD's of Pink Floyd's The Wall, and bags of cheetos? You know, in blue districts?

268 Posted by: Nom de Blog

Well prof, that is a sad testimony to our failing institutions of higher learning if true.

Assuming of course that you are not some stoner typing this in your mommy's basement.

Either one could be true, and both are equally irrelevant.

The internet is rather interesting that way.

Who you are doesn't matter diddly squat.

What you have to say is the point, and pretty much the only point.

269 The way to legalize and tax pot would be to first legalize it, but do not tax it. Let the stores, head shops, etc. start to sell it. Without a tax, they could compete with any illegal sellers. Wait a few years, and then start to tax gradually. By this time, the consumer will be used to going to the store for pot. He's not going to find a dealer again, anymore than you buy beer from a home brewer. There would be many who grow their own though.

270 Though, people do buy moonshine, so I would guess there would still be some illegal sellers. And people do smuggle cigs if the taxes are high enough...hmmmm.

271 drug use is like that of tobacco and alcohol - highly inelastic demand.  The price alteration is not going to affect the usage much in other words.  And it is going to affect the numbers of the user population even less.  Those who want it now, will want it after legalization.  Those who do not, will not, even if legalized.  Personally, when I drink, or smoke a cigar, or whatever, cost is the least of my concerns.  My primary concern is "is it good".  I would not smoke or drink more if the price were only 10 cents for a great cigar or a great bottle of beer/shot of liquor.  Most people function in a similar way, only the price factor comes in when they weigh what type of product to get.  It isn't going to cause a person to stop or do less unless the price becomes outrageous for anything.

Regardless, as I stated earlier, this is an issue I do not care much about either way.  I've seen people function otherwise normally because they can control their usage and behavior, and I've seen lives destroyed by it.  I've known people who lived long lives as regular smokers, and I've known others who died very early.  Same dichotomy with alcohol.  What I don't get is the ban is so hardcore on many illegal products that no testing can be done regarding medicinal properties.  It is already rather well established the medicinal benefits from coca leaves, for example.  Almost certainly better than chewing tobacco.  But the research cant be done to even see if that is the case b/c of the federal regulations.  Or, opium is illegal but oxycontin is legal.  Doesn't make sense to even the anti-legalization side of me.

272 Well Travis, since you think a decrease in price will increase the number of suppliers, and since we're only to be judged by what we type, then you are hopeless.

Perhaps if you had anything useful to offer I'd care about you.

273 Shoey

The Founding Fathers lived in a time and place that generally respected their God to whose [Christian] principles they entrusted their social cohesion. Early Americans tried - not always successfully, but they fought a revolutionary and a civil war - to live their lives within the social boundaries of ideals that they and their fellow citizens found delineated within their churches and reflected in the Founding documents.

While I'm not asserting that they thought it was hunky-dory for Government to legislate morality wholesale, they did indeed legislate morality because to them, laws served the health of the individuals in the maintenance of society. They honored and enjoyed a viable social cohesion in a freedom of religion that is considered archaic by many these days who believe morality is to be determined by a rather fickle and unstable consensus of rather more experimental predilections. There is little reason to doubt that the Founders would have frowned upon so-called liberties that were destructive to the health of their families, neighbors, and Republic.

There were/are laws against such liberties as public inebriation, goat fucking, stealing, arson, rape, and murder. The Devil and Darwin of course took care of the shiftless and lazy. Today the State is expected to through the appropriations of the labor of others.

Of course public drunkenness and screwing whatever-the-hell-we-want is less frowned upon today but such liberties are no less destructive to our society than they were in the society which was conceived of by our Founding Fathers. We would not be the nation of our Founding Fathers otherwise.

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness had a moral context that I'm fairly confident didn't include sitting on ones ass eating government cupcakes while intellectualizing rationales to sit on ones ass eating Doritos and smoking fiber-bearing plants that best served as a means of rigging merchant ships and frigates for the benefit of the economic freedom of the populace. Since then there have been some advances in cordage but a troubling decline in common sense and personal responsibility.

274 It always kills me when potheads talk about how capable and productive they are... you're a dope head, you don't know how dumb and stumbling you are to everyone sober around you.

275 Christopher Taylor,
Do you realize how pretentious you are since you're not high?
(And, yes, before you ask. I do realize how pretentious I am.)

276 drug use is like that of tobacco and alcohol - highly inelastic demand.

Posted by: A.G.

By 1925, approximately 50 percent of adult males were cigarette smokers. Smoking among men accelerated rapidly during World War II. By 1950, the prevalence of cigarette use among men approached 70 percent in some urban areas. From 1965 to 1978, the proportion of adult men cigarette smokers declined from 51 to 37 percent.

Tobacco use is clearly not inelastic. Nor is alcohol usage as evidenced in Russia when vodka was marketed by the Czarist government and consumption rose dramatically. The same pattern was seen in Britain during the gin-mill era.

China's experience with Opium also clearly establishes that drug use is not an inelastic demand.

277 travis -

you are talking about long-term cultural changes and gradual dissemination of more information.  the period of time you are using is over 50 years.  that makes the example you provide bogus in determining elasticity.  price had little to do with that - pro/con marketing.  and had nothing to do with criminalization/decriminalization, etc. 

current opinion is that smoking is unhealthy and drug use often leads to a large host of problems, especially if a person cannot properly manage their usage and themselves.  such opinions are likely to stay.

tobacco is clearly inelastic as can be verified by looking at the effect of price changes on it.  People who were a pack a day smokers when cigs are 2 bucks a pack are gonna be pack a day smokers at 5 bucks a pack.  or 10 bucks in certain areas.

china's experience is bogus too.  opium was a product pushed heavily by the brits in china.  in fact, i recall the brits going to war for exactly that purpose of maintaining that drug enterprise.  in other words, they did everything they could, including war, to get more people hooked on it.  the chinese eventually drove it out by making the cost exceedingly heavy - death - b/c nothing less would end it like they were able to do.  what you have done is provide a quintessential example of something that is inelastic.

278 A.G.,
*shh*
Travis doesn't understand the terms he's trying to use. It's more fun if you pretend he's on to something.

279 If pot is legal, will I be able to get patents on genetically modified strains and industrial processes?  Just curious...

280 I'm way late to this thread but I must say that a substantial majority of the commenters and Ace himself haven't a clue about the professional pot industry or pot consumers in general .
Until there are good statistics about the productivity or lack thereof  of so called pot heads it's all just anecdotes.
Here are some of my anecdotes . People I know personally that smoke regularly are doctors , nurses , lawyers ,,,,,especially lawyers , judges ,cops , construction workers , mechanics , loan officers , housewives , former military officers , you know , the whole spectrum of society . Most of 'em are good folks , too . Any one that says otherwise is an asshole.

281 The price alteration is not going to affect the usage much in other words.  And it is going to affect the numbers of the user population even less.  Those who want it now, will want it after legalization.  Those who do not, will not, even if legalized.

Posted by: A.G.

This was the point you were making and it is clearly incorrect. The price and availability clearly do affect the number of the user population. This user population sky-rocketed in China and elsewhere following legalisation. This has happened numerous times through history.

If your point is simply that a current user will purchase the item if possible with little regard to price, then I would agree with you.

That however is also clearly not the point you were trying to make.

282  Ace, good post and good points.

As far as crime after legalization it would dramatically increase after legalization, for a time. Ending Prohibition increased crime because the mob chiefly moved into drugs  which made users criminals too, to get their fix, unlike booze. The increase now would be much greater because unlike then, when the mob controlled pretty much all vices, today there is high specialization. Large pot dealers would move violently to take over other markets or develop newer drugs and establish a cartel. There are huge numbers of really bad people who just happen to be in jail for pot dealing. The push to release these guys would be huge if only to save prison space and cost alone. Within a year there would be tens of thousands of criminals, who just finished their PHD in crime in the joint, hitting the street at once looking to support themselves.

As far as large pharma or tobacco getting into the business they most assuredly would. But outside of California it won't be grown here the US. Most of the pot sold now comes from large suppliers in Mexico and Canada and they would just buy from them, especially with NAFTA. If they could even make a profit to begin with.

It is silly to compare pot to tobacco or alcohol. Both products require an extensive amount of expert knowledge and a lot of work to produce and pot does not. There would be no way for the government to stop home growers, they can't hardly now and it is illegal. The price of MJ would drop to almost nothing. Imagine what the price of beer would be if the average user could produce a years worth of beer by planting a 12 pack of empties in the back yard. Making pot ready for use, unlike tobacco, is ridiculously easy and it can be stored for long periods of time even easier.

Taxing it to any significant amount would be impossible, each dime increase would just drive up the number of home growers. The feds just raised the tax on loose tobacco 2200% because it had not kept up with rolled and the market had become huge. I smoke and can get cigs from the Indians for $22 a carton and would grow tobacco tommorrow if it was as easy as pot to grow and make usuable. The only way to tax it significantly would be to use 90% of the taxes to enforce illegality of sales. Sales which would pail in comparison to tobacco.
Smokers need a pack of cigarettes a day. Your average pothead could get by on 2 packs a month easy. Tax it highly and they will cut back or grow their own.

The only reason pot is worth anything at all is because of the illegality and stigma attached to it. Walmart and supermarkets would sell it but no one is going to push it anymore than tobacco. Instead they would keep it locked up like cigs, making it as big a pain to buy there, and people would buy from small stores as they do for cigs now. Small stores who would be especially vulnerable to extortion from former pot dealers, especially in the inner ctities which would be among the few places where it would be difficult to grow your own pot. Do you really think MS-13, who already extort now, wouldn't extort small stores now who take over their business of dealing pot?

One last thing to consider is how much will pot use increase and it surely will. A large number of people drink because it the cheapest legal way to get high. How many people switch to pot when they can grow a years supply in a 12 x 12 foot plot in their back yard for pennies an ounce?

If there is an arugument why pot should be illegal it is because it drives people to legal vices which are much easier to control and tax.

283

Regarding the claim that taxing pot will "wipe out the deficit"--a claim made all the time by potheads--to anyone who hasn't destroyed their synapses with THC, this is ridiculous.

Consider:  which has more users, alcohol or marijuana?

I admit that to some punk rocker living in a rundown apartment with his "homeys," the answer to this question may not be obvious.  However, to the overwhelming majority of Americans, the answer is alcohol.

And the fact is that we already tax alcohol.  Not only hasn't it wiped out the deficit, it doesn't even come close.  In fact, it is largely because of the insufficiency of excise taxes that we have income taxes. 

If even an almost universal drug like alcohol can't provide more than a tiny portion of the tax burden, how would a much less popular drug like marijuana?

The numbers just don't add up.

284 well, i am sure george soros will be thrilled. he's spend enough money trying to get drugs legalized. i wonder what he stands to benefit from it? hmmmm...

285 Purple Avenger,

I'm all for it. If you can patent "Baha Mama" or "Golden Sunshine" or "Dirt Weed" I'm a big fan.

I'll never be a customer but I'd support your property rights.

286 kenno,

You are certainly correct. Governments will always be able to spend more than they collect. Adding a revenue source doesn't change that fact.

This was discussed above without any disagreement.

287 "If there is an arugument (sic) why pot should be illegal it is because it drives people to legal vices which are much easier to control and tax." -- Rocks above

Read that sentence and try really hard to make it make sense.

288 Nom de berg,
   How exactly doesn't it make sense? Just for curiosity's sake I ask. Bearing in mind I used the word if.

289
282:  Posted by: Rocks at May 07, 2009 12:33 AM

Walmart and supermarkets would sell it but no one is going to push it anymore than tobacco. Instead they would keep it locked up like cigs, making it as big a pain to buy there, and people would buy from small stores as they do for cigs now. Small stores who would be especially vulnerable to extortion from former pot dealers
One way around that might be to restrict sales to large chains with their own distribution systems that would not be very vulnerable to extortionists.  It's not much less convenient to pick up some weed when one is at Wal Mart buying groceries as it is to seek out one's regular dealer.  One can also be assured of much higher and more consistent quality.  It's also less risky to buy from a major retailer on credit than from a street thug.

290 Holy geez those are terrible arguments...

1. On taxes-- right now, I pay for both enforcement and imprisonment that I don't care about, and it doesn't stop anything. I am curious, though, why you think that once drugs are decriminalized, the dealers would jeopardize their business over taxes. For street cred? I don't get it. And larger, more legitimate outlets would thrash the gangs competitively. See also: Prohibition.

2. On making them peaceful-- right now, I have all the downside you complain about already. But I'd much rather people were imprisoned for offenses against actual other humans, and not against themselves. I have to pay either way, I'd rather pay for the far far fewer that are in your view naturally chosen criminals regardless of profession. I think that's a dubious assumption anyway. See also: Prohibition.

Lastly, outside of either of those arguments-- I DON'T CARE TO BABYSIT PEOPLE TO THE TUNE OF BILLIONS EVERY YEAR THANK YOU. My car is more likely to be searched because of drug law now, I am more easily taken advantage of by corrupt law enforcement (offense is against 'the state' not a human witness), and once again, I don't care about drugs any more than I care about someone's beer or coffee. And I am not sure why you don't favor the criminalization of alcohol based on your arguments, just put them into the 20s and repeat.

I am not a fan of outcomes-based authoritarianism either. I'll be responsible for myself, thanks. Man, this was upsetting to read.

291 289

Sorry, I didn;t format that last correctly and there's no edit function here.


282:  Posted by: Rocks at May 07, 2009 12:33 AM

Walmart and supermarkets would sell it but no one is going to push it anymore than tobacco. Instead they would keep it locked up like cigs, making it as big a pain to buy there, and people would buy from small stores as they do for cigs now. Small stores who would be especially vulnerable to extortion from former pot dealers

One way around that might be to restrict sales to large chains with their own distribution systems that would not be very vulnerable to extortionists.  It's not much less convenient to pick up some weed when one is at Wal Mart buying groceries as it is to seek out one's regular dealer.  One can also be assured of much higher and more consistent quality.  It's also less risky to buy from a major retailer on credit than from a street thug.

292
The Founding Fathers lived in a time and place that generally respected their God to whose [Christian] principles they entrusted their social cohesion. Early Americans tried - not always successfully, but they fought a revolutionary and a civil war - to live their lives within the social boundaries of ideals that they and their fellow citizens found delineated within their churches and reflected in the Founding documents.

While I'm not asserting that they thought it was hunky-dory for Government to legislate morality wholesale, they did indeed legislate morality because to them, laws served the health of the individuals in the maintenance of society. They honored and enjoyed a viable social cohesion in a freedom of religion that is considered archaic by many these days who believe morality is to be determined by a rather fickle and unstable consensus of rather more experimental predilections. There is little reason to doubt that the Founders would have frowned upon so-called liberties that were destructive to the health of their families, neighbors, and Republic.
There were/are laws against such liberties as public inebriation, goat fucking, stealing, arson, rape, and murder. The Devil and Darwin of course took care of the shiftless and lazy. Today the State is expected to through the appropriations of the labor of others.

Of course public drunkenness and screwing whatever-the-hell-we-want is less frowned upon today but such liberties are no less destructive to our society than they were in the society which was conceived of by our Founding Fathers. We would not be the nation of our Founding Fathers otherwise.

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness had a moral context that I'm fairly confident didn't include sitting on ones ass eating government cupcakes while intellectualizing rationales to sit on ones ass eating Doritos and smoking fiber-bearing plants that best served as a means of rigging merchant ships and frigates for the benefit of the economic freedom of the populace. Since then there have been some advances in cordage but a troubling decline in common sense and personal responsibility.

Posted by: monkeyfan at May 06, 2009 10:43 PM (cEE8N)

Wow, that's quite a speech there, Sploochy-con.... meanhwhile, George Washington and several other members of congress were growing their own marijuana crops. Not for smoking, but for making rope and other common household items. Not that that would dent your philosphy, because you are, afterall an ideologue that likes to shout names at folks that might no agree with you.

Here's some for you:

- FUCKHEAD - someone who talks shit about things they don't know shit about - this would be you talkinga bout how marijuana is somehow linked to conservatism and is a downer on our society despite the fact it had a positive impact on our economy for 180 years before it was illegalized by dimwits like you make movie shorts in 1920.

- STUPIDASS - this would be you calling people names for disagreeing with you despite the fact you don't come up with a single statistic, link or example of where you are right... the only reason you are right is because you believe you are.

- IDEOLOGUE - This means you need to go ahead and be a reporter for one of the alphabet networks, NBC, ABCm MSNBC, CNN, or WAGF because you know you're right, but no one else really knows why you are.

293 Davee aaa, that's a good idea but how does the government really enforce sales to begin with? They can with alcohol and cigarettes are hard to produce and transport.
Pot isn't. A pot dealer could trasport a weeks supply of pot for a whole neighborhood in a pickup truck. Pot is sold pretty much openly now and the police don't do much except for large dealers. How effective will policing sales be when possession is totally legal? Stop guys for not having a tax stamp ala cigs? Pot will most certainly be sold loose. Poeple will simply resuse bags when they sell it illegally.

294 Posted by: Schlippy2

Why don't you change your pee stained underwear, but the bong and Cheetos down and call it a night? You clearly have nothing to add but shrieking and vulgarity. If people wanted that sort of thing they could watch Wayne's World which is at least mildly humorous.

295 C583u are you cEE8N?  If not, do you have a reason that my anti-rant is invalid?  Otherwise maybe you can go ahead and STFU too.

296 Posted by: Schlippy2

If you had actually said something I would be able to answer your question. You haven't. As to my secret identity, you can relax. I post under my name and no other. Whoever is persecuting you has nothing to do with me.

297

293:   Posted by: Rocks at May 07, 2009 01:32 AM
 A pot dealer could trasport a weeks supply of pot for a whole neighborhood in a pickup truck.

Unless he's selling it for a considerable discount, it would be easier to buy name-brand weed at Wal Mart at a time of my choosing rather than goodness knows what kind of crap from some guy who might come buy once a week or so.  It's like booze.  I wouldn't buy home made moonshine when I can get genuine Val-U-Rite (or Jack Daniels) for the same price.  It's even more of a difference if one buys other recreational chemicals.  Yes, there'd be a niche market for illegal sales just as there is for illegal sales of alcohol.  Compared to now, that market would be very small indeed.

298 PA-
I was wondering that myself earlier, reading all the comments about "big pharma".  I suppose if "big apple" has/had patents on certain strains of apple that have been developed, then it would be the case for this too.

Nom-
Yeah, I know.  It just reminds me of way back in econ classes... there were several people who just didnt get it.  Or all the idiots, especially in the news, who say retarded stuff.  Ex: I recall O'Reilly railing against Big Oil some time ago... he calls it a monopoly, then immediately says its all controlled by 4 companies.

Travis-
I never said perfectly inelastic.  I said inelastic.  price has little effect.  as does availability.  we're talking about demand.  not usage.  (in other words, a product totally unavailable can still have a demand for it).  but illicit drugs are widely available in this country.  so arguing availability is a red herring.  but that's what elasticity is all about - the effect of a price change on its demand.  I am glad you agree with me now.  the examples you are attempting to argue are changes from effectively zero availability (legal or illegal) to being heavily pushed by government.  that is a radically different scenario.  that much more mimics the behavior of a brand new product introduced to market and heavily advertised.  Instead, economically speaking, it would be more similar to the tv stations "decriminalizing" file sharing of shows.  rather than hunt down every person who downloaded the latest episode of a particular show, many air them for free online.  they accepted the market as a reality, and get their piece of it through advertising.  now there is no real need to download a show illegally because you can go straight to abc, fox, usa, etc. and watch the shows there.  In other words, the market to watch tv shows on the computer already exists and is widespread.  There are two choices - either adapt to it or react with hostility.  (Let me say again, I am speaking just within the bounds of economics/markets, not strictly social effects).  Many tv stations kept pace with the times and adjusted to it well.  So what is the result?  People still watch shows on their computer.  Demand for it hasn't changed much as a result of that, instead any demand shift is based upon more people finding out about that being an option and technology catching up.  Availability hasn't really changed, as bootleg copies were widely available.  Usage hasn't changed much either as a consequence of that shift.  Back to pot... legalization would thus likely not change much in regards to availability, usage, and demand under that market scenario.  It will instead be a factor of what public perception is of its usage in the years to come.  It is an unhealthy habit.  It causes people to be of an altered state of mind, which can cause all sorts of problems.  Being a stoner is no better looked upon as being a drunk.  It has all the drawbacks of tobacco and alcohol.  Legalization isn't going to change those facts.

Will there be social consequences?  I do not know.  If use becomes heavier and more widespread, certainly.  The same could be said for any vice.  And illegal drugs can be very destructive vices.

once again... opium was legal in china.  the chinese didnt like its negative social effects.  they tried to crack down.  the brits said no, went to war, and continued to push it heavily.  consider it as very effective marketing on the brit part.  marketing's purpose is to change consumer opinion, i.e. its demand.  china was eventually able to reassert itself.  in order to eradicate its usage, they had to kill users.  if it were elastic, then it would respond considerably to a mild price increase (say, from taxes) and would not have to resort to such things.

299

295:   Posted by: Schlippy2 at May 07, 2009 01:37 AM
I'm neither C583u nor cEE8N.  I don't agree with Travis on much of what he's written in this thread.  I do, though, agree completely with his post to you.

300 Posted by: dave aaa at May 07, 2009 01:44 AM (I8pXJ)

Dave again you can't really compare pot to alcohol. Pot is an herb. It is relatively easy to produce a very safe high quality product. You've never had a friend give you tomatoes from their garden? Did you refuse them and only buy them at the supermarket where you have no clue where they came from or what went into growing them? Those Peruvian grapes you just ate...you can vouch for them completely? If your next door neighbor offered to sell you mint he grows on his deck at half the price it would cost you to drive across town and buy from Walmart you really wouldn't even consider it? How do roadside vegetable stands survive?

301 Big corps already have registered trademarks for certain pot names in anticipation of legalization. I am sure they could patent strains too if they can show they alone developed them.

302

300:  Posted by: Rocks at May 07, 2009 01:55 AM

It is relatively easy to produce a very safe high quality product

Then why is there so much adulterated ditchweed out there?

You've never had a friend give you tomatoes from their garden?

No, actually.  Like most people, I get my tomatoes and other vegetables from the supermarket.  If the supermarket was selling tomatoes of guaranteed quality at the same price as a neighbour, I'd probably still normally buy from the supermarket.  I don't, as a rule, buy produce from some shady individual on a street corner.

303 You know the country is on its ass when the gov't want to legalize marijuana, but outlaw tobacco.

Decriminalization of prostitution, ahh, now that's another story!

304 Then why is there so much adulterated ditchweed out there?

Because it's illegal to even own the stuff. It has to be grown surreptitiously and by disreputable people.  Also, black markets are always sellers markets. They can  sell garbage because people will buy it. If pot is legal people could and would be as careful and caring in growing it as they are with their prize tomatoes or roses and  buyers would be more discerning.

I don't, as a rule, buy produce from some shady individual on a street corner.

Posted by: dave aaa at May 07, 2009 02:36 AM (I8pXJ)

Well you're a rarity. There are old guys all over my neighborhood, a Connecticut suburb, who sell vegetables all summer long and everybody buys from them. Mostly because they are almost always way better than the supermarket. I've never had one collect sales taxes either and I don't recall the cops rushing in for tax evasion. I doubt they would either as they buy from them too. I think this would become fairly commonplace if pot were legal. People are going to start turning in the old dude for selling the same stuff the sell at the store?

305 My bad. There's no sales tax on vegetables in CT.

306

304;  Posted by: Rocks at May 07, 2009 02:58 AM

I think this would become fairly commonplace if pot were legal.

In that case, it would also be as impractical for the gangstas and bikers to control them as it would be for the government.  You don't get old timey mobsters going after guys who make their own wine - which, come to think of it, is actually not hard to make at all.  My sister's father-in-law, for instance, makes a great home-made red.  People like him haven't put the Liquor Store or any wineries out of business, though.

307 The only thing that drug laws accomplish is to empower the state at the expense of the individual.  Idiots and losers still do drugs, and people who have the good sense God granted the average woodpecker continue to avoid drugs.

Meanwhile the ever-present authoritarian minded individuals have a new tool that they can use to deprive others of their liberty.

If someone wants to walk off a cliff, the best thing that can be done for humanity is to say "Please don't" while getting out of their way.  Trying to protect fools and imbeciles from the consequences of their folly is to consign future generations to a world peopled by fools and imbeciles. 

Let Darwin handle it.

308 Great post, ace.  This has been my contention for a long time. There are more illegal things in the world than drugs.

I would venture to guess that post-prohibition America would see a huge rise in the amount of counterfeit products, as well as fake IDs that could be used from anything from terrorism or illegal immigration, to 16 year old Johnny who is just looking to score a little (legalized) smack on Friday nights.

309 1) Did ending Prohibition increase or decrease the overall crime rates? OK, so ending prohibition didn't end crime. But did the situation get better or worse? 2) Are there current "black markets" for alcohol being sold to 10-21 year olds? Sure, teenagers might bribe an older brother or a hobo to go into the store and buy them some booze, but it's far from the epidemic that drug prohibition currently creates. I haven't heard of gang turf wars over alcohol or tobacco recently. And Ace's whole argument ignores one other legalization argument: the government doesn't have the legal right to ban weed anyway. It took the 18th amendment to ban alcohol. Where's the cannabis amendment? Conservative attitude towards Wickard v. Fillburn and Gonzalez v. Raich depends on the particular ox being gored. Also, hearing conservatives complain about how this won't REALLY increase tax revenue reminds me (again) why I'm not conservative anymore.

310

Ace, you've presented three strawmen, burned them to the ground, and think you've introduced "realism" to the debate. That's not a contribution to realism as the dictionary defines those words.

311 This was the dumbest and most poorly reasoned thing I have ever read on this or any other blog.  The point of legalization is that businesses will take over production just as Phillip Morris does with cigarettes now.  Small growers could not compete unless we impose a punitive tax and drive production underground.  And if someone wanted to grow and sell something they grew in their garden then who really gives a fuck?  It is none of our damn business.  Taxation will not be a problem any more than there is a huge problem now with people running their own stills or selling produce out of their garden.  The "problem" goes away because it has been manufactured by the drug laws to start with and is wholly and absurdly artificial in nature.

There will be no reason for anyone to kill over marijuana distribution any more than you see the CVS and Wal-mart pharmacists drawing down on each other in the middle of the street over who has the Tic Tac concession.  Organized crime will still exist, mainly in the form of the US government, but also in the traditional form.  So what is new about that?  The notion that people who sell pot will then turn to stealing TV's is ludicrous.  Have you ever tried to hide a TV in your crotch when the police pull you over for speeding?  Do you know the risk involved and the skills required to be a thief?  People sell pot in large part because they are lazy and it is easy.  Breaking and entering is hard work.

People will always try to act like the government and do bad things.  They will form crime syndicates to offer you "protection" whether you want or need it and do bad things to you if you don't pay just as the government will protect us all from global warming by driving us into penury while they prosper on the backs of our suffering.  These are the same people.  Just as the food nazis and environmentalists are the same moralizing tards who inveighed against men and women dancing or singing in previous generations.  Tards will find a way to be tards.  Let's not give them any more power than we have to by legitimizing their instincts to pry into and control the affairs of others.  This was the whole purpose of our constitution... to limit the power of tards to cause trouble while the rest of us went on with our lives.

Let's just legalize all drugs, gambling and prostitution.  If someone wants to engage in self-destructive behavior then that is their right.  Put meth on an aisle marked "poison" and let people buy lethal doses if they like so we can cull the herd the way nature intended.    Let's get rid of the mentality that it is up to the government to save us from ourselves.  Down that road lies ruin... and the Obama administration.

312 In that case, it would also be as impractical for the gangstas and bikers to control them as it would be for the government.  You don't get old timey mobsters going after guys who make their own wine - which, come to think of it, is actually not hard to make at all.  My sister's father-in-law, for instance, makes a great home-made red.  People like him haven't put the Liquor Store or any wineries out of business, though.

Posted by: dave aaa at May 07, 2009 03:09 AM (I8pXJ)

I would agree there. At first for a very short time I do think you would see established growers, gangs, attempt to keep other large growers out through intimidation. But pot is just to easy too grow and it will simply explode everywhere. Neither the gangsters or the government would every be able to control it. But again the alcohol analogy falls down here. People making home made wine can't compete with commercial chiefly due to cost and difficulty in making and transporting. It is not a factor with pot. Anybody with a 1/4 acre of land will easily be able to grow enough plants to produce 20-30 POUNDS of pot for about $100 in total costs. If the home brewer could produce 100 kegs of beer, or cases of wine, in the same space for the same amount without any need for multiple ingredients, equipment, etc then the big brewers and vintners would be considerably smaller.

Home pot growing is already many times greater than home brewers and it's totally illegal. Imagine what it would look like if it were legal. It would become another staple of the home garden grown by many millions.

There is something people should keep in mind here though with me and probably with Ace I think. When people discount things put out in favor of pot legalization it is not automatic that they want pot to be illegal. It's just that most of these arguments are specious, they will not produce a great increase in taxes and a large reduction in crime, etc. In other words don't piss on my leg and tell me it raining even if I do want rain. Instead it should be argued, as many do, on personal freedom and amount of harm relative to other things.

313

Drug deaing, crime and all things economic are indeed dynamic systems. The problem with armchair policymakers (and too many actual policymakers) is that they see everything as a static system: change one input, and the static equilibruim will be thus and so.

That was a long post (and worth reading every word) but when describing a dynamic system, one can never thoroughly descibe what's going on. So let me add, knowing that the discussion will still remain incomplete:

Ridding an area of a certain form of crime requires certain ingredients: a change in mission, people to carry out the mission, money to pay for the manpower, and the political will to go see it all through. And the best possible outcome is that the police move the targeted criminal activity out of their area. They don't get rid of the crime; the crime just goes someplace else. Ask any cop.

The social engineers always miss this. They think they can apply some set of simple laws, like the way mechanical engineers use Netwon's laws of motion. They think that if the status quo doesn't work, then the opposite of the status quo will be splendid, always thinking they have "the solution" to every problem, and always surprized by the outcomes.

314

Historically, cultures have not done well using great quantitites of drugs.  Look at what happened to China after their fight with England, they were forced to purchase opium, parlors proliferated and, to save themselves, China outlawed opium.  Modern day, to truly dominate Tibet, China opened drug/alcohol brothels to demoralize the youth in order to destroy their culture.

Look at the regions of our country where drugs are freely used (San Francisco) and other coummnities, drugs deincentivize people.  What are our goals, destroy the family, indoctrinate (public schools)our youth, and turn them into drug users.....great plan !

315 Pot won't be legal for years.   Pot is too easy to grow, thus, too hard to tax.   If it was legal, what type of brain-dead farmer would grow tomatoes that sell for $2 a pound when they could grow pot for $1,500+ a pound.

316

Make everything legal, then there won't be any crime.

What could possibly go wrong?

317 The trick is to get to the girl right after she starts doing porn but before she starts prostituting. That's when they are good girlfriend material.  Also, Ace, some drug dealers do open up hardware stores, but they are poorly stocked and are just money laundering operations.

318 Decriminalization would have to include some extra factors to eliminate the cartels and gangs. Selling would be legal, but would require a license. Licenses are not given out to gang bangers on the street corner. You would buy your dope at the drug store, and you have to show your ID to prove you are over 21, just like with alcohol. Of course, junk will find its way to teenagers, so it won't keep drugs out of kids' hands, but it will make it safer than it is now as the local pharmacist won't be a gangsta keepin it real. Kids won't be used as drug mules or watchouts. There will also be a huge boost in sales tax revenue, to help pay for drug treatment centers. Eventually, when the black market dries up, you start jacking up the price and the taxes on dope. I notice a lot of cigarette smokers being priced into quitting, except the POTA, who can smoke until he dies of a heart attack for all I care. Being a former client of the street drug dealers, maybe Mr. Obama can give us all some insight into what finally made him give up the dope. I don't mean Biden.

319 Also, dosages and purity can be controlled, which is one of the major dangers of illegal drugs. You don't know what's in it, or how much. Heroin in prefilled non-reusable syringes would also cut the rate of hepatitis and AIDS. Just think how many fewer car chases, no-knock warrants, and other side effects of the War on Drugs, which erode all our civil liberties, would be necessary.

320 You know I find this solution of strict control of sales and high taxes an interesting argument coming from libertarians/conservatives. How is legalizing pot this way a good thing for personal freedom, limited government and low taxes?

321 Rocks
"How is legalizing pot this way a good thing for personal freedom, limited government and low taxes?"

It isn't. They just want to smoke weed with society's consent and at cheaper prices without having to interact with icky sorts they would rather just ignore and leave to rot in their various ghettos.

It's actually very progressive in a conservative/libertarian sort of way.

322 It's not about personal freedom for the addicts. It's about the cost to society of waging a losing battle, knocking down doors of 80-year-olds at wrong addresses, and destroying everybody's civil rights in the process. I don't care about making it easier for potheads to acquire their dubes, maaaan. But putting them in jail on the public dime, getting cops killed, and creating a police state should not be the price to pay for protecting immature idiots from their own self-destructive and selfish habits. Let them smoke it, with all the attendant restrictions that alcohol has. No driving under the influence. No sales to minors. Pay your sales taxes. Pass around the joint all you want. But the drug dealers have got to be put out of business, and the government should get back to fighting the terrorists and the tyrants, instead of spying on citizens, destroying families and bankrupting the economy.

323

321:  Posted by: Rocks at May 07, 2009 11:28 AM

How is legalizing pot this way a good thing for personal freedom, limited government and low taxes?

Because licencing is a lot less intrusive and cheaper than prohibition and enforcement.  Ideally, we could, in time, eliminate most of the controls  In the mean time, it's the least worse of the alternatives.

324 >How is legalizing pot this way a good thing for personal freedom, limited government and low taxes? It's better than what we have, which is a virtual police state, with billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of people employed in a fruitless "war," with nothing but collateral damage. Personal freedom? Those who buy drugs would be free from risk of prison. Those who don't would be free from terror of having a crackhouse open up on their block, and free from constant heavyhand tactics of the drug warriors invading their privacy when they have done nothing wrong. Lower taxes? Sure, I love lower taxes. That's what you can have when you raise more revenue through taxation of things like drugs and cigarettes, which have an undeniable harm on society, with massive costs to it. And when you stop employing an army larger and better armed than most national armies to combat the drug trade, suddenly you don't have such high costs to fund through the taxpayer. Limited government? The drug war gives the feds its biggest excuse for being as invasive, bloated and menacing as any totalitarian regime. Sure, regulating and taxing can seem like bigger government, but it's limited to paper-pushing and effects only those that are causing the problem: drug addicts. Take away this "war," and that limits the government a lot more where it counts: in the paramilitary, civilian espionage and prison industries. But it will never happen. For just that reason.

325 This just in:

DAVIS, Calif. -- After conferring with advisers and reviewing records of European success in decriminalizing the innocuous Marijuana plant - the imbibing of which proponents claim; "unlocks blocked creative shakras in the upstanding citizens who choose to inhale the peace-promoting vapors of the plants flowering buds" - California Governor Arnold 'Terminature' Schwarzenegger has stated in a press release that he has "decided on a course of action to resolve the contentious tax issue". At approximately 8:54 AM Pacific Standard Time today he signed a directive authorizing the State National Guard to drop a fuel-air munition on Market St. San Francisco.

Rest of city inhabitants eat each others brains. Developing...

_{In other news:
Mexican stock markets collapse
California cigarette smokers still shunned
Taxes force business to flee state
Unemployment and crime at record levels
President Obama eats bowl of Captain Crunch}

326 1)  Drug dealing is an economic choice.  When you create artificial 10,000% profit margins for consensual transactions, you encourage people to engage in such transactions.  Prohibition made organized crime far more profitable and powerful -- and legitimate, in the eyes of those who wanted a beer now and then.  Prohibition II is doing the same today.   2) Will drug dealers "go legit?" Well, remember, the Kennedys were bootleggers, so the evidence is they can at least become legally-sanctioned parasites.   Eventually drug dealers will become corporatized and regulated, just like alcohol and tobacco producers/sellers.  The Mexican weed/coca growers will disappear because no one wants their inferior products in a free marketplace. More legititmate economic activity, more regulation, safer products, safer kids, everyone wins.   The bottom line is you can't manage the medical problem of drug addiction with the criminal justice system; it is literally doing brain surgery with a cudgel.

327 Trying again for spacing...   1)  Drug dealing is an economic choice.  When you create artificial 10,000% profit margins for consensual transactions, you encourage people to engage in such transactions.  Prohibition made organized crime far more profitable and powerful -- and legitimate, in the eyes of those who wanted a beer now and then.  Prohibition II is doing the same today.    2) Will drug dealers "go legit?" Well, remember, the Kennedys were bootleggers, so the evidence is they can at least become legally-sanctioned parasites.   Eventually drug dealers will become corporatized and regulated, just like alcohol and tobacco producers/sellers.  More legititmate economic activity, more regulation, safer products, safer kids, everyone wins.   The bottom line is you can't manage the medical problem of drug addiction with the criminal justice system; it is literally doing brain surgery with a cudgel.

328 Damn.  I give up.

329 So perhaps the drug lords of Mexico will turn to other avenues of crime, capitalized by their current standing balances from drug profits.

The longer we wait to cut their profit line, the higher those standing balances go, and the longer it will take to dislodge them from the activities into which they move.

The situation in NYC clearly involved police corruption as well.  One of the chief elements in the high crime rate that goes with illegal drugs is that a drug dealer has no legal recourse if he is threatened/assaulted/whatever by another drug dealer, because he is himself outside the law.  We no longer see shoot-outs between liquor store owners.

However, when a lawful businessman, such as a NYC garbage collector, cannot safely apply his trade, and the police does not take effective action to stop it, there is something wrong with the police.

330 "How is legalizing pot this way a good thing for personal freedom, limited government and low taxes?" -- Rocks above

So the perfect is the enemy of the good in your world; that's fantastic.

On the personal freedom scale:
taxes > jail

But since you're apparently for legalizing without taxes I'll agree with you. We can get less government and no taxes with all the personal freedom.

331

3 points to consider about the legalization of alcohol:

First, bootleggers are already required to report their profits to the IRS- just ask Al Capone.

Second, the idea that bootleggers will become law-abiding bootleggers is perplexing; these people are criminals, and if they can't make profits by bootlegging alcohol, they will turn to other criminal enterprises to compensate.

One last point: Legalizing alcohol does no eradicate the black market. It merely shrinks it. There will continue to be a large black market of illegal alcohol dealers who sell to prohibited persons -- namely, kids and young adults who aren't allowed to buy drugs legally, everyone from 10 - 21.

 

Prohibition must be maintained!

332 > Prohibition must be maintained! But, dude, it obviously doesn't work. Who is being prohibited? And the cost of this fruitless effort is the destruction of civil liberties, dead cops, false arrests and destroyed families. Prohibition is an idealist fantasy, unless you want to go the route of a North Korea-style absolute police state. And for what? To keep idiots from hurting themselves? Well, they will always find another way to destroy themselves. Just don't let them take the whole country with them. Let's get our priorities straight.

333 I love how pro-potties argue that millions of innocent people are languishing in jail because of the criminalization of the dank, but at the same time argue that these same innocent "idiots" "will always find another way to destroy themselves".

It's like when the decider elites insisted that President Bush was the stupidest evil genius that ever existed.

It's better to burn out than fade away...I guess.

334 Or, monkeyfan, some people here honestly believe smaller government is better and are willing to tolerate other people's stupidity w/rt drug use than tolerate bigger government.

Tell me, when will the government that's big enough to enforce your Drug War be big enough to take everything you have? I'm guessing we're pretty close to that point now. YMMV

335 > I love how pro-potties argue that millions of innocent people are languishing in jail because of the criminalization of the dank, but at the same time argue that these same innocent "idiots" "will always find another way to destroy themselves". You don't get it. They're "languishing" on my dime. And to get them there requires the dismantling of all of our Constitutional rights. But you can never argue with a Puritan statist.

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