Drugs Violence
America has paid a high financial price for the “war on drugs.” Many others, including Mexico, Colombia, and Afghanistan have also paid a high price, but in violence, death, and the destruction of their society.
The approach which has been taken since President Ronald Rayguns was reading his lines has been ineffective. No doubt that is a bit of an understatement. If your father or child has been killed in the violence between the drugs cartels or the various armies and police forces, heartbreaking would be a better word than ineffective.
The root cause lies in the demand for recreational/escapist drugs. Especially demand from the richer countries.
Would it be wise to simply make alcohol, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, oxycontin, and methamphetamine completely legal and unregulated? The market approach of lower taxation on rich people and complete and total deregulation is what the brain-dead right wing still believes will solve all of our problems. During the 1930s and the prohibition era we amply proved in America that thinking the federal government is strong enough to completely overrule the wishes of the citizens is a total fantasy.
It is clear that drug production and distribution needs to be taken out of the hands of the drugs mafias. Semi-legalization and taxation might be a better solution. The current approach is running roughshod over the concept of rule-of-law. More and more American law enforcement personnel are being corrupted by bribes from the drug barons.
A good place to begin might be marijuana. Lets stop pretending that all those shops in California are selling “medical marijuana” to horribly sick people. We need for the government to regulate the growth and sale of pot, and we need to utilize this as a source of tax revenue. We do it with alcohol and tobacco, why not with marijuana?
The next step should be to truly regulate prescription medicines like oxycontin, sleeping pills, tranquilizers and any other medications which hold a risk of habituation. It would not be difficult to set up a nationwide computer system of pharmacists, doctors, and patients. Right now we have both doctors and patients abusing the system horribly. Every prescription would go into this data base, and if a patient is getting drugs from multiple doctors it would show up. It also would allow the doctor to see what other medications the patient is taking. Of course harsh penalties need to be applied to those who try to get around the law.
Once a country loses respect for rule-of-law and is taken over by corruption, the road to poverty is almost inevitable.
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