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Someone has to finally say it; “The multi-billion dollar, decades old, war on drugs has failed!” According to the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, the federal government will spend over 19.2 billion dollars at a rate of about $609 per second on the War on Drugs this year. On top of that, all the states combined will spend about the same amount for their part of the war. You will be happy to learn that spending this large amount of money resulted in 646,042 arrests of people for simple possession of marijuana in the year 2000! (Boy do I sleep better at night knowing that!) The only ones benefiting from this never-ending war are the tax-funded participants that you and I are paying for. They never want to see this war end. In fact, when looking at everyone who “legally” benefits from this war, one has to wonder if it is purposely being extended indefinitely. One fallacy comment always heard is, “just think how bad it would be if there was no war on drugs.” Well, could it be worse? Two teenage girls just got caught in Plainfield High School with drugs. Also, is there anyone out there who wants to buy drugs and can’t find a place to buy them? If so, you must be the only person in America with that problem. The sad fact is it is easier to find a place that sells illegal drugs than it is to find a place that sells the Holy Bible! The war on drugs has only raised taxes and made the cost of drugs so high that drug users have to do things like rob, murder and maim, or to prostitute themselves, in order to get money to pay the high costs. You are paying for the war on drugs to get yourself killed, to have hookers on your streets and to house non-violent drug users in expensive cells. What’s wrong with this picture? EVERYTHING! Another fallacy comment often made is, “If drugs become legal, then other people, who are not now drug users, will start using them!” (Note that it is always the “other people” and not the person making the comment that will supposedly become a junkie.) Since you folks reading this are considered to be “other people” to me, I’d like to see if there is any truth to the above comment by asking you a few questions: If you were a non-smoker and cigarettes went from $2 a pack to 10 cents a pack, would you start smoking? If you were a non-drinker and whiskey went from $20 a bottle to $2 a bottle, would you start drinking? If you were a non-chewer and chewing tobacco went from $100 a bushel to $1 a bushel, would you start chewing? If drugs went from $1,000 a pound to $10 a pound would you start using drugs? |
The bottom line is that anyone who wants to buy drugs, can and will buy them, no matter if they are legal or not and no matter what they cost. And conversely, those who do not want to buy drugs, won't buy them, no matter if they are legal or not and no matter what they cost! Legalizing drugs will reduce their costs so much that, even with a 100% tax, the drugs will be significantly cheaper than they are today. This will help prevent crime and save our tax dollars. Here are the benefits of low cost, legal drugs: We won’t have to pay to arrest, prosecute and house non-violent drug users in prisons. (Also, new prisons not needed!) We won’t be getting robbed, murdered and maimed by drug users needing expensive drug money. We won’t be helping pay for a multi-billion dollar drug war bureaucracy. We won’t be seeing as many women, and boys, prostituting themselves for drug money. (Pimps would have a reduction in force!) We will be getting money from taxes on drugs to educate our young to not use drugs, like what we are doing with tobacco. We would redirect a huge number of law enforcement personnel to concentrate on the real criminals and terrorists. We would have a tremendous amount of tax dollar savings that could be better used in our communities to improve our infrastructure. (Schools, traffic flow, forest preserves, etc.) Um, let’s see. What is wrong with this picture? NOTHING! Please discuss this issue with your family and friends and let’s see if we can get our politicians to put an end to this expensive war on drugs! Think of how that money could be better used to fund our schools and fix our traffic problems.
The following link presents a controversial look at how our Illinois schools are currently funded and how that promotes un-equal education.
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