How Green?
March 13th 2007 23:46
The Free Market is the holy grail of conservatives, the one magic bullet that will cure all ills. The free market will get manufacturers to keep dioxin out of our drinking water, will get big business to treat their employees fairly and humanely, and will even prevent price-gouging by suppliers. Odd, then, that conservatives are so adamant in demanding that the free market should never ever EVER be applied to the one arena where it's most likely to do some good.
Growing marijuana is no difficulty- even stoners can manage that level of effort (Okay, so keeping one's weed patch hidden is the real trick!). Cocaine has to be refined from the raw coca leaves, but the cost of doing that is nowhere remotely near the insane markup the blow gets when it hits our streets and high schools. The same goes for all illegal drugs; the cost is orders of magnitude higher than the actual production would require.
The key phrase is "illegal drugs." You, the tripping consumer, are paying for the much greater risk involved in delivering your recreational chemical of choice. You pay for the planes abandoned after just one flight into the U.S., you pay for the private armies maintained by even minor executives in the cocaine trade- but the fun doesn't even stop there! You also pay for the DEA force that doesn't prevent the drugs from getting in (or being grown or manufactured locally).
Organized crime rose to power after the Alcohol Prohibition; once it was outlawed there was a much higher profit margin for the hootch. Likewise, the current anti-drug legislation really accomplishes nothing except to artificially inflate the price. Legalize the drugs, and the prices will drop to the point where addicts can easily afford a lethal dose. Problem solved.
I know some people will think this is cruel- I'm one of them. Certainly treatment and rehab to get these people off of drugs would be preferable- but only if they want to get clean badly enough to go there themselves. Like it or not, we've got enough addicts in America to keep the drug industry thriving. If they can decide to get themselves cleaned up, all well and good. If not... well, why try to drag the bitter end out longer than necessary?
I recall President Clinton once remarking something along the line that legalized drugs would have resulted in his brother's overdose... but, having heard Roger Clinton's musical stylings, that's a risk I'm prepared to take.
Growing marijuana is no difficulty- even stoners can manage that level of effort (Okay, so keeping one's weed patch hidden is the real trick!). Cocaine has to be refined from the raw coca leaves, but the cost of doing that is nowhere remotely near the insane markup the blow gets when it hits our streets and high schools. The same goes for all illegal drugs; the cost is orders of magnitude higher than the actual production would require.
The key phrase is "illegal drugs." You, the tripping consumer, are paying for the much greater risk involved in delivering your recreational chemical of choice. You pay for the planes abandoned after just one flight into the U.S., you pay for the private armies maintained by even minor executives in the cocaine trade- but the fun doesn't even stop there! You also pay for the DEA force that doesn't prevent the drugs from getting in (or being grown or manufactured locally).
Organized crime rose to power after the Alcohol Prohibition; once it was outlawed there was a much higher profit margin for the hootch. Likewise, the current anti-drug legislation really accomplishes nothing except to artificially inflate the price. Legalize the drugs, and the prices will drop to the point where addicts can easily afford a lethal dose. Problem solved.
I know some people will think this is cruel- I'm one of them. Certainly treatment and rehab to get these people off of drugs would be preferable- but only if they want to get clean badly enough to go there themselves. Like it or not, we've got enough addicts in America to keep the drug industry thriving. If they can decide to get themselves cleaned up, all well and good. If not... well, why try to drag the bitter end out longer than necessary?
I recall President Clinton once remarking something along the line that legalized drugs would have resulted in his brother's overdose... but, having heard Roger Clinton's musical stylings, that's a risk I'm prepared to take.
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