Thanks YOU America for keeping our product prices high
John Stossel correctly believes that the war on drugs is worse than drugs:
I understand that people on drugs can do terrible harm — wreck lives and hurt people. But that’s true for alcohol, too. But alcohol prohibition didn’t work. It created Al Capone and organized crime. Now drug prohibition funds nasty Mexican gangs and the Taliban. Is it worth it? I don’t think so.
I’ve never used them. I’m high on life! But if you want to, I don’t care.
This war is lost. Know how you can tell? Watch Leno, Conan, or Stewart and listen when they mention pot or cocaine. The audience hoops and hollers. Drug use is acceptable, even cool, amongst a generation of young adults that were born 20 years AFTER the “war on drugs” started.
The war is lost – and it was wrong to fight it in the first place.
I’ll never use drugs. I hope my kids never do either. But that is my and their choice, not some stupid government weenie who wants to “protect” us and is willing to “destroy our village” of rights to save it.
June 24th, 2010 at 11:02 am
You mean you won’t use addictive narcotics for recreation, and never is a long time. It is possible that you will become dependent on such substances when used medically.
How do you think we could help convince the American voters that the drug war is a losing expensive proposition since they don’t seem to notice that America failed at such a war ninety years ago? Is that a measure of general disregard for history and a confidence that their present ideas are all that matter? Most societal ideas have been around for a long time and have been tried in one form or another. The wisest people learn from other people’s mistakes.
June 24th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
The issue is that most people aren’t smart. The second issue is that most people don’t mind banning stuff they don’t do (like guns or drugs).
What will it take? Very little. Just somebody with the cajones to propose it.
June 25th, 2010 at 9:05 am
Remember also that there is a large contingent in the US who thinks that if it’s bad it ought to be illegal and if it’s good it ought to be done by government. And those people tend to vote. History and economics aren’t their motivators. And unfortunately, the spread of instant communication has caused elected politicians to be ever more representative rather than educating. This blog is just one small cog in that giant machine of unrestrained opinion.