Nice commentary on Drug Legalization

[Fear No Evil]

In many parts of the country you cannot smoke a legal cigarette in a bar. In some areas, you can't smoke in most places other than your home. We've brow beat restaurants into not serving foods with trans fats in them. I've seen discussions in this forum about going after restaurants which server unhealthy food. We have some schools banning high sugar drinks from their lunchrooms.

We are apparently unable to make good decisions regarding smoking, trans fats, and soda.. so much so that the nanny state is making the choices for us.. But legalizing hard drugs is a good idea? What am I missing here?

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: Wreckem

Again you dont get it.

They HAVE THE POWER to prevent it from happening. You'd have to bust up the cartels first. Or they will use the POWER THEY HAVE RIGHT NOW, to stop any legal activitity.

Not only that most SA governments arent exactly friends with the US. They arent likely to risk their own lives on behalf of the US.

The only way legalizing cocaine will stop cartel violence is if, the US could produce enough cocaine within side the US to satisfy the demand. That is probably not possible.

The US possesses territory that can support coca cultivation:

Parts of Florida, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and some other islands have suitable climates.

Friendly foreign partners such as India and Vietnam also could be in the picture for the raw plant material.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: Wreckem

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Wreckem

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Wreckem

You are stupid. You would FIRST have to break the cartels. You cannot just enter the market with the cartels in existence because they will easily KILL new enterants.

You obviously arent getting the point. The have such much POWER RIGHT NOW, they can use that power to destroy any new competitor. Which is what they are doing amongst themselves in this current cartel war. You think Wal-Mart will find it acceptable to have blood on its hands?

Yes lets resort to name calling. That always wins the debate :roll:
How do you explain Coca-Cola importing tons of the leaf legally? Are they buying direct from the cartels?

The cartels control a % of the supply. They will either go legit or die. I think they may go legit but their power will be dimished greatly.

No they buy directly from Stephens Inc. Who buys directly from the governments. They buy from growers, who are either 1. routinely killed or 2. also on the payroll of the cartels.

But they are buying from legitimate suppliers. The cartels dont control 100% of the supply and if you cut them at the knee's their financial empires along with their ability to intimidate as well.

Like I said at worst they go legit. Either way they can only control the supply for so long until they run out of money from a reduced profit margin.

Again you dont get it.

They HAVE THE POWER to prevent it from happening. You'd have to bust up the cartels first. Or they will use the POWER THEY HAVE RIGHT NOW, to stop any legal activitity.

Not only that most SA governments arent exactly friends with the US. They arent likely to risk their own lives on behalf of the US.

The only way legalizing cocaine will stop cartel violence is if, the US could produce enough cocaine within side the US to satisfy the demand. That is probably not possible.

The question is whether the cartels get their power and money from controlling the production of cocaine or providing the means through which it enters big time markets (the USA and Europe). I would tend to think it's the latter. Though the cartels are vicious about controlling the production of the substance, their money is made because of the ridiculous markup they can put on their product once it's within the US border.

The cartels' power is from their ability to traffic the drug to the high-value markets, not from their ability to control supplies. After all, what good is a bunch of cocaine in Bolivia if you can't get it to the US?

Like the end of the prohibition era, private industry will quickly outstrip the cartels' ability to produce, ship, and control the stuff. Sure, private industry will be hampered slightly compared to the end of prohibition because cocaine is harder to grow / manufacture than booze, but I still don't see the cartels being able to compete against some of these industry giants.

 

[bipartisanpwnage]

Legalization of marijuana at the very least is a necessity. There are 50 million users of marijuana in the united states alone, so prohibition has neither limited the supply nor the demand, nor will it ever do so. A drug in such great demand can never be prohibited. However for things like cocaine, herion, meth, etc. why do we have to legalize those? The U.S. drug market is dominated by marijuana and by diverting our resources to combating the real drugs, we can kill two birds with one stone. Please stop the craziness and legalize pot for crying out loud. Nicotine kills 400,000 people annually in the U.S. and alcohol kills another 80,000. Marijuana has killed ZERO in the history of its usage.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Originally posted by: bipartisanpwnage
Legalization of marijuana at the very least is a necessity. There are 50 million users of marijuana in the united states alone, so prohibition has neither limited the supply nor the demand, nor will it ever do so. A drug in such great demand can never be prohibited. However for things like cocaine, herion, meth, etc. why do we have to legalize those? The U.S. drug market is dominated by marijuana and by diverting our resources to combating the real drugs, we can kill two birds with one stone. Please stop the craziness and legalize pot for crying out loud. Nicotine kills 400,000 people annually in the U.S. and alcohol kills another 80,000. Marijuana has killed ZERO in the history of its usage.

Come on - Really? Nobody has ever driven while under the influence of MJ and killed someone? This is why we can't even take your argument seriously.

 

[Vic]

Since when does pot being illegal stop people from toking and driving? I swear, this is the most ridiculous argument against pot legalization possible. There are MILLIONS of people in America who smoke pot on a regular basis, despite the fact that it's illegal, and I doubt that very many of them -- right after breaking the law by smoking weed -- suddenly stop and go, gee... I better not break the law by driving now.