Drugs, immigration et alii - radical solutions

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Drugs, immigration et alii - radical solutions - 5/20/2010 12:44:29 AM

Termyn8or

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Joined: 11/12/2005
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For radical problems. This will probably never happen and of course it has it's share of problems. But what we are doing now isn't working anyway so why not ?

Make some changes in the law. Something like the following :

First of all drugs become legal. Growers and resellers are taxed, and make it a formal law that everyone has to pay. Get rid of the gray area that quite a few people enjoy. Sell it in the stores, but like alcohol, not to minors.

Forget stopping illegal immigration, it's not going to happen. Immigrants can work, and must pay into everything, but if they fail to become legal residents can never collect any benefits. Come on up and sell your pot, but when you check in through the border and they see you arrive with a hundred kilos and leave with nothing, expect a tax bill. Get a reciept.

They must obey the law, ask at the border if they intend to do much driving and make them aware that most states require liability insurance. Sell it at the border. If commit a crime here they do not have Constitutional rights. And no public defenders, if they can afford to travel they can afford a lawyer.

Now I am aware that this is extremely oversimplified, perhaps someone would like to expound on some of the finer points. But think of the ramifications. Drug related violence would drop drastically. The effects on the economy would be positive to say the least.

As a bit of time goes by, with many more growers in this country the price would drop. Eventually the foreign drug dealers would not have as much incentive to come here. They'd go home with their load "Man, they won't even pay $XXX a pound". "That sucks, how are we going to make money now ?". "Dunno".

Then, so ironically we might have Mexican drug dealers being called to witness for the prosecution of US drug dealers - for tax evasion !

What's more, stems and seeds could be "recycled". The stems could go to the manufacturing industry if we ever get any back, and the seeds could go to the drug companies. Every pot smoker in this country would do the separating, and take in their "scrap" just like those who now save their beer cans.

This concept is nowhere near all the way thought out, but I am trying to find a downside. Empty prisons, an unclogged justice system, more revenue. What they're doing now certainly has been proven not to work. But there is a signicant contingent of the US popultion who want to get high. As long as they don't hurt others why not just let them ? It saves all kinds of trouble for everyone.

They didn't repeal alcohol prohibition because it was working.

T

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RE: Drugs, immigration et alii - radical solutions - 5/20/2010 3:23:53 AM

Rule

Posts: 10479
Joined: 12/5/2005
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
First of all drugs become legal. Growers and resellers are taxed, and make it a formal law that everyone has to pay. Get rid of the gray area that quite a few people enjoy. Sell it in the stores, but like alcohol, not to minors.

Not feasible. The trade is deliberately illegal.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
Forget stopping illegal immigration, it's not going to happen. Immigrants can work, and must pay into everything, but if they fail to become legal residents can never collect any benefits.

Good idea.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
Forget stopping illegal immigration, it's not going to happen. Immigrants can work, and must pay into everything, but if they fail to become legal residents can never collect any benefits. Come on up and sell your pot, but when you check in through the border and they see you arrive with a hundred kilos and leave with nothing, expect a tax bill. Get a reciept.

Why? They may have given it away.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
They must obey the law, ask at the border if they intend to do much driving and make them aware that most states require liability insurance. Sell it at the border.

Okay.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
If they commit a crime here they do not have Constitutional rights. And no public defenders, if they can afford to travel they can afford a lawyer.

I disagree.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
Empty prisons, an unclogged justice system, more revenue. What they're doing now certainly has been proven not to work. But there is a significant contingent of the US population who want to get high. As long as they don't hurt others why not just let them? It saves all kinds of trouble for everyone.

Okay.

My own suggestion: reduce the population by birth control - one or at most two offspring per female.

< Message edited by Rule -- 5/20/2010 3:25:09 AM >

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RE: Drugs, immigration et alii - radical solutions - 5/20/2010 4:12:54 AM

LadyEllen

Posts: 10931
Joined: 6/30/2006
From: Stourport-England
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Legalisation of certain "herbal remedies" may be a reasonable idea - I can come up with many good reasons why it should not be but these reasons dont seem to wash when considering the situation with alcohol so one must conclude them to be inadequate grounds to continue a ban. The only factor against that, by comparison with alcohol, is the fat soluble nature of the active ingredients, occasioning thereby the potential for them to build up over time, whereas alcohol being water soluble the active ingredients leave the body in fairly short order.

Legalisation of other substances however presents more of a problem in my view. The good reasons to continue banning them far exceed their correspondents when considering the other substance. This leads to a significant problem in that if one northbound trade be legalised then those wishing to continue to reap the much higher rewards of illegality will switch to other products, far more dangerous to society than even the strongest weed, whilst those who come in from the cold as it were shall see their profitability plummet and eventually be obliged to move to those other more damaging substances.

It must be all or nothing from this - and a free for all market for opium and cocaine and their derivatives would not make for a happy ending, except in the minds of those under their influence perhaps.

Alternatively there may be a case that with one trade legalised, resources may be diverted to police the more damaging trades to better effect. It may be that with a lower burden in terms of enforcement, authorities may see more success in pursuing a narrower field of substances. However given that the problem as regards those substances continuing to be banned should be likely to grow as mentioned above, this advantage should surely be quickly lost.

Personally I should like to see all substances legalised - but then I know that I could live and get on with my business in such a world without being tempted over the edge, just as I know that laws are written and enforced for the purposes of limiting and controlling the most stupid who should no doubt fall prey to addiction to the more damaging substances very readily, with catastrophic effects for everyone, were they available readily.

I should also think by now that the apparent continuing criminalisation of users of all banned substances, particularly those addicted to the more damaging, should have been ended or at least tempered very much such that they are given help rather than prison sentences. But then help to stop using does nothing to remedy the straits in relation to which they started using in the first place, for which a wholesale reorganisation of the socio-economic model should be required.

E

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