Hey, Joey.

I just gotta say, it feels good to get back to something we agree on. How many innocent lives must be lost to the drug war before we 'get it' as a society?

Organized crime is largely supported because of the stellar profit margins associated with drug trafficking. We would all like to see organized crime come to an end, right? You end it by taking away its source of income. The high profits associated with illegal drug trafficking sustain violent organized crime. It is the very illegality of drugs that make them so attractive to gangsters. After all, if you’re going to break the law, why not do so profitably?

Also, it is the illegal status that adds substantial imbedded costs of acquiring these drugs by users. That, in concert with their high addictiveness, drives users to violence against the innocent to acquire the money to get high.

Of course, if social drugs were legal, users would be harmed more, that is true. That is because addictive social drugs would be attainable in a free open market which would reduce their costs of acquisition to that of alcohol and tobacco in today’s market. But the corollary is that the innocent would see an immediate enhancement of safety. Who has ever heard of an innocent person being robbed and killed so the perp could get a six-pack of beer or a deck of smokes?

So legalize social drugs for personal use and save hundreds of innocent lives in the process. If someone is caught driving under the influence of drugs, throw them in jail with the dui offenders.

And for those who get addicted….we now have the money in the government coffers for serious and effective rehabilitation programs to help them overcome their addictions since we are not spending billions trying to control the uncontrollable. Moreover, we can focus our attention in a very massive fashion toward drug awareness and prevention in schools. We won’t be limited in resources anymore. Schools will be inundated with government money to teach the tragedies of substance abuse. Because not only are we saving money on the futility of the drug war, but we also can now tax the stuff.

I’m all about prevention, awareness, and treatment for drug addictions. I’m not about letting gangsters thrive while they perpetrate violence on innocent people. But let’s be fair about it- give it a trial period. Legalize pot and see where that gets us. If it works, expand it to other social drugs. If not, go back to the old way.—J.G.

I appreciate your support on this issue JG. Your response says it much better than I can. By creating a new class of criminals, all we have done is throw untold millions of dollars at criminals. I like your idea of a trial period. Say a couple years, if it's too much of a problem, then so be it. I just don't think it would be.