Legalize Drugs

Drugs should be legal. 

If drugs were legalized, prices on drugs would then go down, as they would be mass produced in a legitimate setting, and marketted to the public much like many other product.

This is in stark contrast to what we have now, where they are illegal, driving the prices up.  The drugs will always be getting into the country.  Drugs are consistantly found within the United States by police.  Clearly, they are making it in here somehow. 

As the prices to the said drugs go up, poor people who are addicted to them usually resort to stealing, and other nefarious methods of attaining drugs, or money to buy drugs.  Consequently, the crime rate goes up.

If drugs were legalized, the beneficial changes would be dramatic.  Violent drug kingpins would be put out of business by legitimate corporate competition who would produce things cheaper, and more efficiently, delivering the lower prices and benefits to the poor and the other consumers.

Not only that, the drug war is very expensive.  Keep in mind, that's your money they are spending. 

Quote:
"In 1969, $65 million was spent by the Nixon administration on the drug war; in 1982 the Reagan administration spent $1.65 billion; in 2000 the Clinton administration spent more than $17.9 billion; and in 2002, the Bush administration spent more than $18.822 billion."

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/economi.htm


The War on Drugs is the next big failure.  Why couldn't we learn from the attempted failure of alcohol prohibition? 

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157es.html



Wouldn't you all rather the police spent their time hunting down real criminals, like robbers, murderers, and rapists, instead of harmless, pot smoking hippies and teenagers?

>>16

"The "individualist" right and its libertarian allies must also be held responsible for the Crusade on Drugs (TM). "

The libertarian/individualist right is actually opposed to the War on Drugs, unlike the republicans.

To my knowledge, other than the borderline-socialist greens, they are the only party willing to take stand on the drug issue.  The democrats and republicans both want to _step up_ taxpayer funding on the drug war, and neither is bringing the issue of legalization to the table.

The libertarians will.  They will also promote your right to bear arms.  Note I don't use the word "protect".  I say promote.  Even the supposedly "pro-gun" republicans, for the most part, are not for the repeal of many of the strictest, most draconian gun-control measures forced into the country under the Clinton adminstration.

The libertarians are the only political party that will put an end to the expensive, and absurd drug war, as well as _laxen or remove restrictions_ on firearms for law-abiding gun owners. 

That is, to make it blatently clear, the republicans are only for protecting the bureaucracy already surrounding the Second Amendment.  The libertarians will roll it back.