A friend wrote that her brother had a fire in his apartment. When the fire marshal investigated, he found marijuana residue. As a result the brother lost his teaching job. Would a teacher have lost his job if the fire marshal had found alcohol?
Isn't it time we end the war on drugs? It certainly hasn't succeeded, it costs lots of money for enforcement, it leads to violent crime, and it doesn't make us friends in foreign countries when we aid unpopular governments in the eradication of the plants.
Isn't it time we treat drugs the same as we do alcohol? People get in trouble when they pose a public risk: driving under the influence or being a public nuisance. Shouldn't we only concern ourselves with the use of drugs when the use directly impinges on us? We don't worry about people getting drunk in their own homes; should we worry about people getting high in their own homes?
A lot of money and law enforcement personnel were wasted during Prohibition. Not only was time and money wasted looking for alcohol, but even more was wasted fighting the dealers. Didn't we learn anything from this?
Now instead of wasting these resources on enforcing the unenforceable, we regulate the sale and use of alcohol at a much lower cost and also gain tax revenue from its sale. Isn't time we did the same with drugs?
We would save money in enforcement, prosecution, and incarceration. We would gain money in taxation. We could use the gain to provide many more productive public services.
