Moreover, the government could provide open and free health care to drug abusers. Addicts could be slowly weaned from their drug use. Today, addicts must either enter clinics and go cold turkey or stay hooked.
Benefit #3: Saved resoucres and money
Right now, marijuana is a $5 billion cash crop in the U.S., and the federal government doesn't see a penny of it. Instead, the government spends billions of dollars trying to stop drug trafficking.
Under legalization, the government would not only save drug enforcement costs, it could also tax drug usage. The increased revenue could go to providing the free help drug addicts need so badly.
IF anyone thinks the war on drugs is being won, they should look at the nation's inner cities where our society is being destroyed from the pavement up.
The drug lords have responded to the narcotics crackdown in a particularly devastating manner. To avoid the harsh jail sentences mandated by new federal and state laws, kingpins are using teenagers to distribute drugs on the streets.
The allure of $100 a week is too much for thousands of youngsters to withstand. The criminality of drugs even more than the drugs themselves are corrupting our young, leaving them in jail, dead, or hooked on the substances they distribute.
Of course, it would be ridiculous to ignore the risks of legalization. Other countries which have experimented with legalized narcotics have large segments of their populations using drugs on a regular basis.
But the fact remains that we are a society using drugs, and that we will never stop drug usage. The more earnest our attempts in pursuing the war on drugs, the greater the costs in violence, wasted resources, and unaided addicts.
Some law enforcement officers have said we are entering a critical phase in the country's battle with drugs. Just as the Costra Nostra became entrenched from the profits of illegal alcohol sales during prohibition, police warn that the national and regional networks of drug gangs may become entrenched in the next few years.
Yet the debate over narcotics strategies is confined to a narrow band of differing law enforcement techniques. There appears to be a taboo on reassessing our fundamental assumptions about drugs in our society.
Ultimately, the question about drugs may prove to be a painful one: should we allow drug usage to expand through decriminalization or allow uzi-toting gang members to rule our cities?