Interesting read here, one last thought. (1) Legalization will not change the situation much except for users, to raise cost mainly because of taxes and "control" agencys. There will still exist the blackmarket smuggling so as to put cash (tax free money) in dealers pockets and a cheaper product.
And some "business people" may even encourage theft. Example : ever see the commercial on TV to just send in all your old gold and silver and get back cash? Now...........you know these guys are perhaps giving back 50% actual value,
I disagree. The so called 'war on drugs' has cost the US taxpayers a staggering amount of money over the years, and has accomplished virtually nothing other than paying off a lot of cops' mortgages and car loans! I've been there and know how it works, and still have friends on drug task forces that work a LOT of overtime. The majority of the busts they get are pot, not hard drugs. If pot were legalized then the drug cops could concentrate on the hard drugs and quit messing with the stuff that looks great in the news media but is not causing the real drug use problems in this country.
I guarantee that if pot were legalized the dealers would drop the stuff like a hot potato as the people who actually use pot would for the most part quit dealing with those types and there wouldn't be any money in it for the dealers. Look at it this way, if you had a choice of going to the local store to buy your beer or sneaking around in some back alley looking for a sleezebag (who would probably just as soon screw a gun in your ear and take all your money) to buy your beer from just so you could save a couple of bucks on your six pack, where would you go to get your beer? If pot were legalized it would be the same situation. Also, as far as regulating it, it wouldn't cost that much more. It would probably fall under the same umbrella as alcohol and cigarettes and just be one more item for the systems already in place to regulate.
One plus is that the taxes the government collected on pot sales would more than pay for what is being spent on drug enforcement now, and another is that the stuff would be regulated and probably not be as accessible to minors since the dealers wouldn't bother to mess with it because there was very little profit margin.
BTW, the payback from the gold buyers on TV is actually closer to 30% on the dollar, and the antique road shows is even lower on gold purchases. Those people are vultures preying on people who are in tight financial situations.