Legalize which drugs? Only marijuana, or also crack, heroin, or LSD? If a certain drug causes brain damage and makes its users invalids, who will support them?
I think a cost-benefit analysis needs to be done for each drug.
I think a cost-benefit analysis needs to be done for each drug.
If you were buying drugs over the counter you wouldn't expect to hit on a batch that contained a poisonous substance. Drug companies would be very careful to make sure that doesn't happen.
Here's a recent case from the UK:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/superman-ecstasy-...
And there will still be a market for black market drugs. The legal, high-quality, taxed drugs will be more expensive than the underground variants. People will still make and sell homebrew meth, just as people still make and sell homebrew booze.
This isn't to say that I think we should keep things the way they are. There are many intoxicating substances that cause grievious harm to individuals, families, and society in general and I don't think that any of the illegal ones are worse than alcohol in that regard. And I don't think that getting high or being addicted is a criminal act (though it may lead to things that are criminal, such as stealing, driving under the influence, etc.)
I also think that intoxicating oneself is usually a bad idea, particularly if it's done to escape from or avoid some problem or life situation that needs to be dealt with and resolved. My worry is that legalization will be percieved as endorsement, absent any campaign to highlight the ethical, moral and personal responsibility expectations that people will need to live up to. And we seem as a society to have really gotten shy about teaching that certain behaviors and ways of living can be right or wrong, absolutely.
I'm not saying that it shouldn't end. I'm saying that it is not "as simple as it sounds" and if you try and treat it that way there will be fallout to deal with.
Making drugs? Selling drugs? Work in treatment? Work in the new recreational environments setup to take drugs? Increase enforcement of public intox/driving issues? Police elsewhere and other issues?
If you just cut all of those people loose, then you will have to deal with the fallout of a bunch of angry unemployed people, and their friends/family/etc. In addition to <opposing political party> using it as a "you don't love America" field day.
I know it's a pipe dream, but personally I think anyone involved with imprisoning drug users / dealers should see the inside of a jail cell themselves.
> What will all of those local police departments do without the 'easy' money from the government?
Perhaps they could attempt to solve and prevent crimes involving violence and fraudulent behavior, which theoretically is the reason they exist in the first place.
And the idea that the war on drugs is a revenue-positive endeavor is so preposterous I am not sure how to even address it.
You are assuming that they are not doing that currently.
American police forces deliberately gorge on the excess of 750,000 marijuana-related arrests every year in order to profit from quotas, grants, and civil forfeiture while allowing hundreds of thousands of rape kits to sit untested for years in police warehouses. Only 4% of all American police arrests are for crimes considered “violent” by the FBI, even though those crimes are offered as the justification for enormous public expenditures, wholesale Orwellian surveillance, and every violent aspect of modern policing.
Also, you don't need to totally legalize drugs. Though I'd love to see how that might work out.
If at any point your society thinks it needs to wage a war on the way its own citizens choose to behave you might want to take a nice long introspective look at society.
EDIT Additionally the studies have already been conducted in many cases. Asked to conduct a scientific study for your country into effects of various drugs you might find that you just end up being dismissed for presenting the data [0]
Why not spend some of that money on drug treatment and long term care for the few people who'll suffer permanent harm as a result of drug use?
Actually, no. Soft drugs are not a problem. Opiate addiction isn't addressable with prisons. We know treatment is far more effective and less costly. Other drugs don't have a large social impact one way or another. And on top of all that, disemploying narcs will get a lot of thugs off the streets.
LSD is effectively non-toxic. It's not addictive. It's less likely to make people do something dangerously stupid than alcohol, which kills thousands in drunken accidents every year. Marijuana is also non-toxic, and generally makes people cautious rather than risk-prone.