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Comment by hackuser | Hacker News Reader

The drug cartels brutally murder thousands and commit many other crimes -- they are as brutal as ISIS in many ways -- they undermine and oppress entire countries and ruin large parts of American cities. Many organizations such as the Taliban and Hezbollah fund themselves via the drug trade.

Some people boycott companies over political issues; how many of them still buy drugs? Every user I know, to whom I've mentioned this issue, insists their drugs come from a friend who produces it at home. But somehow the drug cartels earn billions and have worldwide distribution networks.

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Prohibition laws created the drug cartels. You don't see distillers killing each others in turf wars, quite simply because it would be highly destructive to their possibility of operating on the right side of the law.

To end the "wars" regarding drugs, you must end the war on drugs. Legalize everything. It won't eliminate drug abuse, just like legalizing alcohol didn't eradicate alcohol abuse, but it removes all the compounding effects caused by the substances being illegal by themselves.

Besides, legalizing is, from a moral perspective, the only right way to act.

Agreed. And then deal with it the same way you do with tobacco and alcohol, with social campaigns to raise awareness of the issues of addiction. We have a working model here for legal drugs that are just as bad or worse.

Working model? LOL.

I have never heard someone claim their heroin and cocaine were "homegrown".

I believe the equivalent for these would be sourced from non-cartel family farms. Fair trade drugs if you will. You can't really grow these in a 'home' because it takes lots of land.

This is another argument in support of legalisation. The 'war on drugs' is lost, and can never be won. Far better drugs are legalised, can be produced safely and with known purities. Governments can tax their sale (as per alcohol), and direct some funds into treatment programs for addiction.