Well surprise, surprise. It really works.....

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/n...rtugal-addicts

No Surprise.

Stop treating drugs as a crime and more as an addiction. You'll get better results, less crime, less people in jail and save a crap load of money being spent by the government.

I agree the current approach isn't working. With the confiscation laws authorized during Reagan's tenure, police departments are so heavily reliant on auctioning contraband seized during drug busts, to include cash and homes, that many of their budgets would be affected severely by decriminalization. So don't expect it to happen any time soon.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=91490480

Originally Posted by thunder1

I agree the current approach isn't working. With the confiscation laws authorized during Reagan's tenure, police departments are so heavily reliant on auctioning contraband seized during drug busts, to include cash and homes, that many of their budgets would be affected severely by decriminalization. So don't expect it to happen any time soon.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=91490480

Dear diary,

Today I agreed with thunder.

I just recently watch a TV program [dont recall the name ] in reference to northern CA. pot growers.
I couldnt believe my ears when they spoke about guys having 20 plants at 5k a piece in their back yards. Moments later they talked about the crimes taking place and crops raided .

If it were at the very least legal to grow one plant per person I doubt that crime would exist.

When you consider that America imprisons more of its citizens than Russia and China combined and that half of the American prisoners are convicted of drug crimes you have to start questioning our current laws and policies.

It costs about $50,000 a year to imprison someone and about $5,000 a year to send them to college.

I'm not sure America is ready to change its path and abandon the war on drugs but I'm sure Mexico is ready to stop the cash flow to their drug lords.

And where is the Tea Party on this issue?

The legalization of drugs is a key component of the Libertarian platform.

Originally Posted by stone_axe

And where is the Tea Party on this issue?

The legalization of drugs is a key component of the Libertarian platform.

The Tea Party seems to be more focused on tax issues ... this truely is a Libertarian issue ...Dems and Repubs are unfortunately in lockstep on this one, which just proves that regardless of what they say ... they don't actually support ALL of your rights and freedoms ... just the ones they like.

Personal responsibility and accountability. If you do you pay

I'm interested to know what you guys would do to address the impact of more drug taking?

From what I can see, take drugs and keep it to yourself - fine, BUT it never seems to be like that! There's the addiction which no amount of money that you currently have seems to be enough - so the drive to take it from others, the (often) reduction in acceptable behaviour (driving, violence, failure to look after your responsibilities - like family, jobs etc).

Personally, as I suspect you can guess, I think drug taking and the dependency (including smoking, drinking!) is a loser occupation, and as I'm not a loser I don't do any - apart from a glass of wine once a week.

Originally Posted by Norman Adlam

I'm interested to know what you guys would do to address the impact of more drug taking?

From what I can see, take drugs and keep it to yourself - fine, BUT it never seems to be like that! There's the addiction which no amount of money that you currently have seems to be enough - so the drive to take it from others, the (often) reduction in acceptable behaviour (driving, violence, failure to look after your responsibilities - like family, jobs etc).

Personally, as I suspect you can guess, I think drug taking and the dependency (including smoking, drinking!) is a loser occupation, and as I'm not a loser I don't do any - apart from a glass of wine once a week.

You would address it the same way you'd address any other addiction. It would simply no longer be criminalized.

Consumption would of course be controlled in the same manner as alcohol.

Some years back, I had a conversation with an knowledgable person about defects in our justice system. He said that it would never be changed, because so many people make their living off it. I am afraid there is some truth in that. If we decriminalized drugs, a number of private prisons would go bankrupt, for example.

We didn't learn a thing from prohibition. Prohibition funded the rise of organized crime, nearly bankrupted the government from loss of liquor tax revenue, created a generation of scofflaws, and ruined the lives of a fair number of people with bad liquor.

I dont think pot is a gateway drug but I do know its much harder to conceal than much harder more harmful drugs . I think if pot was legal hard drug use would go down.

Originally Posted by logan5

You would address it the same way you'd address any other addiction. It would simply no longer be criminalized.

Consumption would of course be controlled in the same manner as alcohol.

But that doesn't address the (possible?) increase in addicts, who might be turning to illegal activities to pay for their addiction, as addicts (of any variety) have a tendency to do!

I was interested in if people thought that an increase in addict related crime would occur, and if it then was simply adequate to have the normal law enforcement actions handle it, or whether you guys perhaps thought that the current drug proscription was in itself lessening that particular area of crime - or not.