Ed Weick wrote: > Well Chris, you're obviously on the side of the mafia.
Absurd accusation -- the drug mafia wouldn't advocate a preventive program to solve the problem at the root, nor the death penalty for drug dealers. Actually, your accusation falls back on you, because the mafia is very interested in increasing addiction (and the "market"), and that's what legal drugs accomplish. Today's smokers are tomorrow's druggies. That's why the drug mafia works hand in glove with the tobacco industry -- cigarette smuggling is a multi-billion $ business. For an extensive documentation on the cooperation between Big Tobacco and the drug mafia, see http://dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Health/Tobacco/Smuggling/ So the legal drug industry does NOT drive out the illegal drug mafia, it even helps the mafia by increasing its market and laundering its money. Now, you can claim that legalizing ALL drugs would leave no market for the mafia -- but that's also wrong, for two reasons: 1) Legal drugs are taxed, so smuggling is still profitable, as can be seen with cigarettes. High profits are ensured by the high volume of consumption of legal drugs (as opposed to low volume at high price of illegal drugs). The mafia can only win: Reducing taxes would further increase consumption, while increasing taxes would increase smuggling. 2) The range of synthetic drugs is virtually infinite, and addicts move up the ladder of drug potency. Even if a set of drugs is legalized today, the mafia can always develop new, stronger drugs catering to customers who need a new, stronger kick. You'd end up with an arms-race of drug potency between gov't and mafia -- the gov't legalizing ever-stronger drugs and the mafia developing even stronger drugs -- but the gov't is bound to lose this race because above a certain level of harmfulness, drugs cannot be legalized. So there will always remain illegal drugs, i.e. a market for the mafia (in addition to smuggling legal drugs). Your concept is also disastrous from the fiscal point of view: The gov't would have to maintain a vast chain of drug shops, PLUS the police resources to prosecute the mafia (see above), probably larger than today. All this in return for ever-lower tax returns from an increasingly addicted and brain-dead population. A lose-lose scenario for gov't and population, with only the mafia winning. Legalizing drugs is like putting out fire with gasoline. It leads to a rat-race to the bottom, like economic laissez-faire does in general. The problem of addiction can only be solved at the root, but to contain the present extent of addiction, it is necessary to ban drugs and maximize prosecution of the drug dealers. > Can't argue with that. Obviously. > Besides, I've too much to do. Lame excuse. Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
