Our Country has waged a battle against illegal drugs for over a century (The first instance of the U.S. enacting a ban on the domestic distribution of drugs was the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914, which focused on regulating and taxing opium and cocaine, rather than outright prohibition.)

As with Prohibition of alcoholic beverages (1920 - 1933) the results of criminalization have been a failure. Additionally, like Prohibition, it has created Organized Crime, not only in the USA, but
across the world, from the heroin poppy production in Afghanistan to the Cartels in Mexico.

I propose that the USA not only legalize ALL currently illegal drugs, but establish
“Drug Stores” that provide all types of such drugs for free. The government would then be the preferred, essentially the only, buyer and producer of all such drugs.

What happens as a result and why is it a benefit?

Health care - Emergency Room visits for OD and treatment approach zero from a current number of over 1.5 million (National Estimates from Drug-Related Emergency Department Visits, 2023SAMHSAhttps://www.samhsa.gov › sites › files › reports › rpt53161). Estimates of total annual costs vary, but at least $2.5 to $3.0 billion per year.

Local Law Enforcement - In 2023, $39 billion in direct enforcement (https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/data-download/costs-war-drugs-continue-soar-rcna92032), not counting indirect crimes such as thefts, robbery etc. associated with money needed to purchase drugs.

Federal law enforcement - DEA, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, FBI, CIA etc Cost $45 Billion per year (https://interbidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/FY-2025-Budget-Highlights.pdf)

Incarceration - 44% of those in Federal Prison are drug related! (www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp)
I suspect that State prisons and local jails reflect similar rates.
The annual cost is $9 Billion, a low estimate, i believe. (https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/poor-prescription-costs-imprisoning-drug-offenders-united-states)

I could not estimate cost savings for the Judicial area; only that we save on prosecutions, defense attorneys, criminal court judges and courtroom space. Your estimates are welcome.

That said, while not 100% of expenses drug related would accrue to us as taxpayers on all levels, the savings are certainly not insignificant. Note that rehabilitation and psychological care are not estimated.

The cost of establishing the Government “Drug Stores”, while significant, pale in light of the savings noted above.

Now, the most important result of this proposal is to eliminate, essentially overnight, the International Drug Cartels. By eliminating their primary source of revenue, you reduce the ability to pay for corrupt government officials, including police, military, lawmakers, judges … The Washington Post, in 2019, estimated the Mexican Cartels generated A HALF TRILLION DOLLARS ANNUALLY!

When you consider the Mexican Annual Federal Budget in US$ is $460 Billion-no wonder there is corruption! (Mexico's 2025 federal budget proposal, submitted to the Mexican Congress, is approximately $460 billion (USD), with a significant portion allocated to state and municipal governments. (Ref AI Search)

One sees the enormity of the problem!

My apologies for the long exposition… I invite discussion and questions - please.

Tillman

Can you explain how this would reduce drug overdoses?

quote:

Originally posted by 400m:
Can you explain how this would reduce drug overdoses?

I have a possible solution to that problem as well, but most folks would consider it Draconian at the very least.

Happy to explain it if interested.

If you think ODs will "approach zero", or even decrease, you're smoking what you're selling. These people don't care if it's legal or not...they just want to get high. They have to get high. They're addicted. At least keeping it illegal provides a recourse to protect the public from their behavior.

Traffic deaths will increase. That's statistically proven. Also child neglect. We have two families in our church who are raising the little kids of family members who are addicts. Those kids have all kinds of medical and developmental issues due to the parents using dope during pregnancy. One family has to drive their kids 2 hours to Indy every other week for medical treatments, plus all the local appointments and therapy. If they overcome the medical problems and survive to adulthood they'll never be right, and they'll always require some kind of assistance for the rest of their lives. And the worst part is that the "parents" kept having more kids even as DCS was taking them away. For years as they worked through the custody process, they still had to take the kids to regular visitation with the shitbird parents, which just added to the emotional trauma that those poor kids already have. And now the other family, the good family, is going to spend the rest of their lives raising and caring for crack babies created by their worthless addict brother and his equally worthless addict girlfriend. They and the kids are the victims of this "victimless" crime.

Those are the lucky ones...kids who had good extended family who were willing to take them in and provide them with a good home. I see the unlucky ones all the time at work. Kids growing up with junkie parents, being exposed to continual domestic violence and living in absolute squalor, bouncing from relative to relative or in and out of foster homes, then back to the parents once they complete the DCS programs only to start the process all over again when they fall off the wagon.

Homelessness, unemployment, workplace-related-injury...all that stuff will go up, too. My son works in a manufacturing plant. One of his doper co-workers ran a 1/2 lag bolt through her hand with a hydraulic press because she showed up to work high. She failed a drug test as part of the workman's comp investigation, and got fired. Drugs and heavy machinery don't mix. Luckily in this case she only hurt herself and not him or any of his other co-workers who are just there trying to work and make a living.

I don't know what the answer is, but IMO incarceration is cheaper than the cost to society from letting them continue their behavior unchecked. I'm all for rehabbing those who truly want it and are willing to put in the effort to make it work, but at some point you've gotta draw the line and lock them up somewhere where other people can make their decisions for them, for their own good and the safety of everyone else around them.

Prohibition or no Prohibition, the alcohol "problem" manifests itself differently. Choose your poison.

Making all illegal drugs legal by transferring all the drug dealings to a different named organization (government) doesn't make the drug problem go away. Fentanyl is a legal drug and is regulated. You can buy it at your "drug store" right now, with a prescription from your doc. Has that made its problem go away? Can you imagine folks legally using cocaine and PCP and LSD now and going to work everyday? The grass is not greener on the other side.

There are also direct case studies for this. Look at San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. They decriminalized it, and the outcome was pretty much the opposite of what they hoped.

Laws don't fix the problem. Words in a book won't force people to make better choices. But they at least provide some accountability and legal recourse for dealing with those who won't correct their behavior on their own.

You could always just book a weekend getaway over here and experience the utopia of doing whatever drug you feel like anytime, anywhere.
Yep, smashing success!

It's brilliant actually.
Create a gigantic junkie paradise, start up multi million "treatment" programs then profit.

It's really cool having this all over the place.
Even better when they set up camp next to your house for several weeks.

quote:

Originally posted by 400m:
Can you explain how this would reduce drug overdoses?

The majority of overdoses are due to the variable strength and/or adulteration with more dangerous drugs.

The Drug Stores would provide drugs of known potency, much like prescription drugs from our pharmacy today.

^^^ How did that work out with Fentanyl?

How is this different than what Portland has been doing which has been a disaster to their economy and their normal people?

How is this drug store option different than the marijuana dispensaries and there is still organized crime and cartels selling marijuana in those states? In fact, by most acccounts the legal stores have emboldened the illegal trade.

Drugs are only a part of an addicts lifestyle. Sure, they get their drugs free but what about clothing, food, shelter, etc? Like magically a junkie is going to go to work every day? Not all but many cases it just gives them a higher income as part of their ill gotten money isn’t diverted towards drugs purchases.

Why should they get free narcotics at taxpayer expense? Citizens who are productive members of society have problems paying for prescription drugs for various reasons, why should they be penalized? Funding through their tax dollars to buy narcotics for addicts while they are skipping their own legitimate prescription drugs prescribed by a health professional?

Sore spot with me, while I can’t correlate a friend’s death last summer directly to it but he halved his BP meds to stretch them as he lost his job together with his health coverage. He never said anything, his pride got in the way but despite my being on SS I’d have helped him if only he had said something.

Legalize and tax drugs? All that will do is create a whole new category of crime - the evasion of such taxes - while doing nothing about the existing associated crime. Provide drugs for free? I'll be goddamned if my tax dollars are going to be used to subsidize other people's fucked-up lives.

quote:

Originally posted by tleddy:

quote:

Originally posted by 400m:
Can you explain how this would reduce drug overdoses?

The majority of overdoses are due to the variable strength and/or adulteration with more dangerous drugs.

The Drug Stores would provide drugs of known potency, much like prescription drugs from our pharmacy today.

The Gov can't restrain itself from taxing the drugs in such manner as it negates the private market. One only has to look at States that have legalized Weed to see how this plays out.

Oh, f**k me for missing that little drugs "for free" nugget. Free shit for all the addicts. Problem is now solved.

The 'War on Drugs' is clearly a failure. $100s of billions (trillions?) of dollars have been spent with the only impact being that illegal drugs are likely more readily available than they previously were and the huge increase in violent drug gangs (similar to prohibition increasing the size/power of the mob) and their power on a global stage.

I'm not saying that legalization is the answer (although my feelings on the topic are close to that), but what we're doing has failed horribly and we keep throwing money and the lives of law enforcement down that hole for no logical reason other than 'Drugs are bad'.

The solution of making illegal drugs legal is more than ridiculous. The death penalty for sales does not work either. Making cannabis legal has not worked out so well. Read up on the opium dens in China.

The decriminalization experiments mentioned were missing the most important leg of the program; provision of no-cost drugs.

Unfortunately, the scientific studies I could find that provided drugs were exclusively heroin.

The studies that managed to come to a scientific conclusion(https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2219559/) indicated a benefit to heroin users and a financial benefit as well.

The majority of studies suffered from political issues, rather than scientific.

As I said in the title “Controversial”!!

I tried to provide references to any statements of fact. It would assist the discussion if all would do the same… a reference for such statements as “…studies show.” Would allow for confirmation, such as I provided.

U;\!qz

I pay for enough welfare bums as it is.