I can never understand the "make every drug/thing less dangerous than alcohol/cigarettes legal" idea, because not only is that applicable to a LOT of things(especially the cigarettes) but banning either of those would lead to more mafias
I... can't parse what point you're trying to make. State that banning booze and deathstick can add mafias, which you seem to be suggesting is bad. So it... makes sense to unban other stuff, to remove mafias, right?
I'm really trying to parse that too. Perhaps scourge is implying that people are actually saying "pot is less harmful than cigarettes, so we should
legalize pot and
ban cigarettes" which is the only interpretation of his statement that makes sense.
But that's a mischaracterization of the decriminalization argument. The actual argument is "cigarettes are regulated, not banned. Pot is not as bad as cigarettes, so perhaps it would be better to also regulate pot instead of banning it".
It's about the net balance. We know the harm that pot does, we know the good things pot can do, and we know the harm that comes from banning things:
- taxable money lost to the black market. Think about how much drug money goes out, tax free. Un-banning drugs would expand the tax base, meaning overall tax rates could be lower, and easing deficit problems at all levels of government.
- violent crime for control of the black market profits
- police corruption. More criminal profits means more bribes and opportunities for corrupt behavior. Also, the potential lucrative profits mean more corrupt people are attracted to the police force in the first place. e.g. if you're a vice cop you
have the opportunity to fuck prostitutes for free and to steal drugs, since those people are doing something illegal, you can hold that over them. Banning minor things attracts this type of cop to the force.
- higher insurance premiums for everyone: because preventing drugs at the supply-side pushes up prices, and that means drug addicts steal more stuff to fund their habit. Which means more houses getting robbed and higher insurance payouts / premiums.
- higher taxes: gotta pay for extra police and prisons, as well as making up for the tax losses to the black market.
- general life-wrecking of people charge with small amounts of pot. This leads them into a life of more serious crime, since they're put into prisons where they meet real hardened crims and when they get out of prison, they're less able to find a job, and now they have studied "Crim 101" with the masters, plus they have real criminal contacts.
- pot being illegal means pot sellers also try and sell you other illegal things, like meth or heroin. licensed sellers don't do that. e.g. when you go buy a packet of cigarettes they don't normally try and sell you some meth as well. If they have licensed pot-selling stores, then existing tobacconists will start selling it, too, and those people aren't in the business of trying to upsell you to crack and smack.
So, the argument isn't that pot is less harmful than cigarettes, so it's the cigarattes which should be illegal. The whole argument is that criminalization of minor things leads to all sort of horrors that we are now experiencing. Getting rid of the illegal trade would clean it up immensely, while also giving the government some control over what's being sold (e.g. regulating the strength of pot becomes an option).
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Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O (Read 14929522 times)