I have been thinking about this the past few weeks. Forgive me if there's been a discussion on this, but I'd love to hear everyone's view on this.

Although I'd label my self as a hard-right conservative (both socially and fiscally), I can't help but think about a few things.

If you did not know, Mexico is in a near-civil war over the drug trade. 5,000 people died last year over it, and the drug lords are very well armed, trained, and brutally killing cops & soldiers over the drug running trade that Mexico is so valliantly fighting against.

I can't help but think this though: The only reason the drug runners are doing what they do, is because they're the only ones allowed to do it, and there's an incredible amount of profit in the drug trade. Growing weed (AFAIK) isn't much more difficult than growing a tomato, yet one sells for far more per pound.

Because of this, I can't help but think that, as Americans (and the stupid ones that do drugs), we've built up regimes in foreign countries, and regimes in our own back yards: meth labs, coke factories, weed gardens, ect. All replete with their own version(s) of the 20 and 30's-esque gangsters. Again, it's due to the immense risk-reward factor that 1 kilo of coke retails for $85,000 as of 2006 - 1 small brick is equal to 2 years of pay in America....So why not risk it to live in luxury?

If America decided to legalize the production of said drugs in specific areas, and taxed them heavily (although not as heavily as to bring the price in eqivilent with current 3rd world prices), it could render a win-win situation: We get the drug trade out of the evil drug lord's hands, and the govt. has a new pet to tax.

What is everyone's opinion on this? Although I hate drugs with an intense passion, I can't help but wonder that since we've made them illegal, we've built up many horrible regimes worldwide. If we took the profit away from them, they would be forced to go into another more difficult trade.

Just a crazy idea.

I agree with that last sentence. It is crazy.

I'm all for international revolution, but legal pot? Less money for the dealers but kids will be smoking up all day err day. Like you Im Canadian and I think if our kids got any stupider we might as well just use them for speed bumps. Same for the US.

My brief thoughts, but before that, I will say that drug addicts are a waste of society - not targeting the stoners, but the cokeheads, heroin addicts etc. Absolutely useless people through and through -Ive dealt with a lot of people in this category.

Now - Legalize weed, but make it adult only, like alcohol, since the effects are pretty much like booze and smoking combined.

Everything else should stay illegal as it ruins lives. Send police task forces to kill off drug dealers, keeping the trash away from kids and keeping the projects in ruins.

Legalise drugs? No way, how many more people would die?

 I completely agree with most of your post, except that I believe all drugs should be decriminalized. I don't believe that any government has a right to tell someone what he or she can or can't do to their body despite the effects that will happen.

Also, all the war on drugs has done for most countries is caused even more crime than anything. Plus were wasting ridiculous amounts of are hard earned taxes to send people to jail for petty crimes like possession which is absolutely stupid.

If you legalize weed, the gov't can make ton of money.
but there still will be problems due to other drugs.
Legalize everything? That would be crazy.

I think drugs should definitely be legalized. It's not like our laws are actually based on harm to the user, because alcohol kills more people per year than every other drug combined. It kills through liver failure, alcohol overdose, drunk driving, and it causes domestic abuse that destroys families. But AT LEAST it doesn't make people go blind anymore, like it did (rarely) during Prohibition. And AT LEAST it doesn't create a giant bootlegging gangster element of society with shootouts and deaths everywhere. Unless we can magically make the whole world stop drinking, then keeping alcohol legal, clean, and taxing it a lot is the safest and smartest thing we can do for people's safety and taxes. I think all other drugs should be handled the same way.

If we legalize drugs, we'd have fewer people in prisons which would lower our taxes and give our cops and courts more time to handle crimes that have victims, rather than "crimes of recreation with your own body." And as you said, we'd elminate the drug cartels instantly, saving tons of lives from the murders and from the dirty drugs.

For more information, I shall pass the mic to LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition): http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

On their front page it shows Al Capone and Pablo Escobar, and says "Same problem... same solution!"

I read about these guys for the first time a few years ago. They're a group of conservative cops who don't want to arrest drug users anymore because they'd rather be protecting people AND lowering taxes. What could be smarter than that?

Oh, and before everybody jumps on my ass as usual, these drugs should all be illegal for minors, heavily taxed and regulated, the same way we treat alcohol, tobacco, and driving. Nowhere in my post did I say "legalize drugs for kids."

In fact, with the TONS of money the government would make taxing these drugs, and the TONS of money the government would save by letting all the nonviolent drug users out of jail, we could lower taxes AND pay for more drug education and rehab clinics. And drug growers and rehab clinics would also mean more jobs. It's win-win-win-win-win.

The issue here is that besides weed, drugs can make people do things to other people. Ive known people assaulted and forcibly injected by heroin addicts, had a student who was mugged by a coke addict for money. The harder stuff should be kept away. Weed only destroys the individual if they let it, but things like coke and heroin destroy socities.