The legalization of drugs

The actual costs of drugs in the US today are made up of several factors. Only one of those is the actual cost of the product. The other costs are the higher transportation costs (since it is illegal and the conventional systems cannot be used), set asides to cover loss in transit (cops find some, confiscate it and burn it, costs for protecting the drugs during shipment as well as bribes to authorities here, at the point of origin and while in transit.All of the additional overhead mentioned above disappear when we are speaking of a legal commercial product. Absolutely true. And for the program to be effective the quality of the product, just as with oranges or bubble gum, would have to be satisfactory.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Sorry I see it as just a strawman. Carry on if you wish. As I said, Not My Problem and just a strawman. If drugs are illegal in their area then that is that nations problem, not ours.As to the US Health Care system, hell yes it needs to improve. However it costs considerably less to treat addicts than to incarcerate them. Let's redirect what we spend now on incarceration towards addressing the Health Care issue.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Modulous has brought up something that I was going to wait till preliminary issues of simply setting up such a system have been dealt with. Since it has been raised, let me move on.In your system, are drugs only allowed to be gotten from clinics, or are people free to grow/make their own drugs?In Amsterdam, where mj is decriminalized, the different kinds of mj are numerous. If people are allowed to grow or make their own then markets will spring up based on quality of product. Synthesized drugs could be an incredibly fast paced market (new materials created yearly).Are the federal programs supposed to compete with these independent operations as they arise? How will this be done?

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I would hope that the Federal system would simply subsume the independents.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

As a note, you use the term strawman rather carelessly. I am NOT saying you have said Y, and thus X. Given that I don't know what your system does about X, I am asking what it does.In any case, your original statement was about collapsing the criminal drug industry (including cartels). My question was if we set up a free system where drugs can be carried out freely, won't that be helping supply the criminal drug industry (including cartels)?Saying you don't care about other nations does not exactly answer that question. If we are to set up such a system, shouldn't we care about cartels abusing it to make money from poorer nations?Edited by holmes, : not

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Do you mean buy them out as producers, or just start buying their product, or what exactly?What is done to a producer who is unwilling to let go of their product (except via the market)? As far as I understand, no legitimate business could be coerced by the gov't to give up its "secret recipe" or produce for the gov't.Edited by holmes, : clarityEdited by holmes, : typo

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Nope.I am dealing with the US drug problem. Period.What effect it has on anything other than the US is a strawman.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Just bring them in. They produce a product? Buy it. Period.This is no different than many other markets, alcohol, tobacco, medicinals.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

If the US becomes the major supplier of drugs world wide, won't thata) mean it would have to dedicate an enormous amount of land to drug production?b) cost a fortune in tax payers money?Surely it affects the US?

Well, I think that is pretty much speculation. But there is an easy solution.If that is the issue then the other countries can simply do what the US is doing.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I agree. I think substituting hemp, which has absolutely no THC in it, over paper makes alot of sense. I also like the way Amsterdam does it with hash bars. But let that be the buisness of an entrepreneur, not the burden of the American taxpayer. The "Peoples pot" seems a bit The major difference is male and female. Hemp comes from male plants and cannibus saptiva comes from the female hemp plant and produces buds and THC. In other words, you can't get high whatsoever on a male plant. The DEA was not in existence in the 1930's. I believe you are thinking of the Prohibition Bureau. I can take you even further back than during Prohibition. The colonies first used hemp in abundance as a cheap crop to make clothes and hemp paper from. It was the logging industry that ran them out of buisness because at that time, the logging industry was in cahoots with the US government. Of course, no one at that time really understood the symbiotic relationship we share with trees. For all they knew, oxygen was just something ubiquitous for no apparent reason.

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"The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God." -2^nd Corinthians 10:4-5

You can get high from male plants, but it isn't as good as female plants - it is still worth smoking. Female plants have a much higher yield because they continue to create buds until they are pollinated by a male. As such, cannabis growers have to make sure to separate males and females otherwise their female yield will be reduced as their females start producing seeds instead of buds.The difference is in what parts are harvested. The stems are tough and fibrous (used for hemp) where as the leaves and buds are THC factories which are smokable.Plants that are used for hemp production are bred to be tall and more fibrous (so don't have much THC in them), much shorter and bushier varieties are used for getting high. Manilla hemp has no THC, but cannabis hemp does have THC in it. Its just not particularly smokeable.

That would simply make it an issue you are not considering, and not a strawman. Mod rephrased my question and you seemed not to have a problem answering it.And as for that answer, you seem to be missing the point that what it does is set US taxpayers up as the suppliers for cartels. This can have a backlash as essentially setting ourselves up as a narcostate, with graft and corruption based on the money it would generate at taxpayer expense.Or let me make an analogy, that would be like having the US taxpayers buy autos so that all citizens can have a car, plus allowing companies to take them and sell them for profit (black market so untaxed).Why would Americans be better off paying for a solution which might anger other nations, as well as give free product to companies (where they will make a profit), instead of simply allowing the market to regulate the price internally?Why is alcohol not the model of what will occur?Edited by holmes, : No reason given.

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

You understand that this will let countless individuals create new drugs or variants (ie pot blends) and then simply jack up the price to get what they want from the US taxpayer?After all if the gov't has been given a mandate that this must happen, independents have the ability to artificially inflate prices, just like any other manufacturer. It's their product. If there is no choice available to the consumer (in this case the gov't) then the producer calls the shots.In fact, doesn't such a mandate essentially make the US gov't an addict? I have asked you at least once already, why drugs would not follow the same model as alcohol, so this answer seems strange to me. The US gov't doesn't buy any of the above to hand out free to the people (except perhaps vaccines). And they certainly don't go with any and all brands of things available.If you are going to mention these as your example, then why not have drugs be treated like those?

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Having lived here to see it first hand, I simply have no idea why other nations would hesitate using this model. And it goes beyond just the bars.People can grow individual plants and (for me) to be at family gatherings where someone might have a plant among all the others (they are pretty), as well as adults smoking it just like cigarettes with no "ohhhhhhh" factor, its pretty cool.OT: I mentioned before that I liked your avatar. Where is it from/who created it? I generally feel mesmerized by it every time I'm replying to a post of yours.

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)