I heard there was an MD in New Jersey who'd been writing prescriptions for medicinal marijuana for like $500 a person to anyone who came to him looking for weed. It took the CDC 6 years to catch up with the guy and they only found him because he sold so much ($50 million worth) that he had artifically spiked the rate of glaucoma for the entire state.
Also, one of my uncles is a medicinal marijuana farmer in Colorado. He's actually allowed to keep a certain portion of his crop and he has a license to carry a specified amount of weed with him wherever he goes.
Really though, we should just legalize all drugs. Instead of dropping $billions down the crapper fighting a "war" we can't win and fostering a culture of corruption and violence, we should be regulating the sale and use of drugs, taxing them, and using the profits to set up rehab clinics. Why we treat marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc. any different from alcohol is beyond me. They are all harmful if used immoderately, but most people are perfectly capable of having 2 or 3 beers and not drinking themselves into a stupor.
Legalizing drugs could accomplish 3 huge changes for the better: 1 - It would reduce the prison population and prevent a lot of otherwise decent, responsible people from becoming criminals. We all know that kids who get tossed into jail for smoking up carry that stigma with them the rest of their lives and they are more likely to end up in poverty or in jail again.
2 - It would save the government (and thus the taxpayers) a ton of money. The DEA's budget for this year alone (http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/agency/staffing.htm) is $2.6 BILLION. And this is just for the DEA. It doesn't include spending for police drug units, it doesn't account for money spent to house the people in jail for drug-related offenses, and it doesn't cover the court fees associated with illegal drugs.
3 - It would take the funding source away from most of the dangerous gangs, from the drug cartels, and from terrorist groups. Take the money from the gangs, and suddenly there's a lot less incentive to join one in the first place. Without all the cash, it's suddenly a lot easier to track down and arrest the dirtbags running drug cartels. The Taliban gets a lot of their money from selling poppies to make heroin - if we take their means of support away, they can't buy guns or pay off the locals to keep fighting us. It's possible that ending the war on drugs could lead to a big step in ending the war in Afghanistan.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-09-17 09:03 pm (UTC)Also, one of my uncles is a medicinal marijuana farmer in Colorado. He's actually allowed to keep a certain portion of his crop and he has a license to carry a specified amount of weed with him wherever he goes.
Really though, we should just legalize all drugs. Instead of dropping $billions down the crapper fighting a "war" we can't win and fostering a culture of corruption and violence, we should be regulating the sale and use of drugs, taxing them, and using the profits to set up rehab clinics. Why we treat marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc. any different from alcohol is beyond me. They are all harmful if used immoderately, but most people are perfectly capable of having 2 or 3 beers and not drinking themselves into a stupor.
Legalizing drugs could accomplish 3 huge changes for the better:
1 - It would reduce the prison population and prevent a lot of otherwise decent, responsible people from becoming criminals. We all know that kids who get tossed into jail for smoking up carry that stigma with them the rest of their lives and they are more likely to end up in poverty or in jail again.
2 - It would save the government (and thus the taxpayers) a ton of money. The DEA's budget for this year alone (http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/agency/staffing.htm) is $2.6 BILLION. And this is just for the DEA. It doesn't include spending for police drug units, it doesn't account for money spent to house the people in jail for drug-related offenses, and it doesn't cover the court fees associated with illegal drugs.
3 - It would take the funding source away from most of the dangerous gangs, from the drug cartels, and from terrorist groups. Take the money from the gangs, and suddenly there's a lot less incentive to join one in the first place. Without all the cash, it's suddenly a lot easier to track down and arrest the dirtbags running drug cartels. The Taliban gets a lot of their money from selling poppies to make heroin - if we take their means of support away, they can't buy guns or pay off the locals to keep fighting us. It's possible that ending the war on drugs could lead to a big step in ending the war in Afghanistan.