Our Drug War Next Door

[ameratsu]

Strategyking92 said:
You know, this is not a problem for the US.
I mean, this particular story.



What gets me confused is that certain people wanted smoking banned and marijuana legalized... This makes zero sense. Also, I am kind of afraid what would happen if 1/4th of the country is f*cked up at once. Crime might go down, because prices would go down, but it means more people have access to drugs, and therefore, all the drawbacks from getting high. Mood swings and such.

 

I've heard this argument over and over, it's like a broken record already. First things first, i doubt many proponents of legalization are seriously expecting smoking to be banned. While it is true that the availability and consistency of marijuana would increase with legalization, I'd argue that those in schools (middle, high) currently have greater access to marijuana than alcohol because its sale is not controlled and therefore available in the school itself much of the time. There is no age restriction and definately no quality restrictions enforced by the sellers of marijuana. I question your assertion that there'd be that many more people on drugs. Perhaps i'm a little biased as a Canadian, but those who want marijuana are largely able to find it. There are even legitimate canadian websites where marijuana can be purchased domestically or shipped abroad.

The war on drugs is such a colossal failure that it would be irresponsible to support its full continuation when the US is in seriously bad shape economically. Americans need to take a hard look at the war on drugs, and ask themselves if it's the sort of thing that they value in its current extent.