I know everyone here is familiar with these ideas, but just like the last thread I posted, I am trying to give you something to show others to help to change their minds with the truth. My last thread was more of a scientific approach, and this one is more like a simple, insightful approach. This is the start of a section that is a really good read, and it's only a few pages long. Check it out: [FONT="]----- [/FONT] [FONT="]We live in a country where torture is legal and marijuana is illegal.[/FONT] [FONT="]Bill Maher[/FONT] [FONT="]Black markets: [/FONT][FONT="]When people wake up, drugs will be legalized. They will be taxed just like cigarettes and alcohol. Some of this new tax money will be spent on education, rehabilitation clinics, and the prison system. Why not let the problem pay to stop the problem? Outlawing drugs has just created a black market and violent gangs. It puts billions of dollars into the pockets of a criminal underworld. It supports many people that hurt many people. [/FONT] [FONT="]Black markets feed the beast and make it much stronger.[/FONT] [FONT="]The same thing happened when alcohol was outlawed in the thirties. It created a black market and gangsters, and we had to legalize it just to stop all the gang violence. We need to legalize street drugs for the same reasons. The gang problem is much worse now than it was in the time of Al Capone, and a lot more people are being killed. We are just wasting billions of dollars and wasting peoples lives. Making drugs illegal is a good idea that just does not work.[/FONT] [FONT="]Drugs do not cause violence. Getting illegal expensive drugs causes it. [/FONT] [FONT="]Drugs do not cause violence. Alcohol makes people more violent than any illegal drug. Alcohol kills more people than guns, but it is legal. When a law is causing more problems than what it is outlawing, intelligent beings change it before it causes more damage. Good intentions do not always work; this must be seen. [/FONT] [FONT="]We could be putting a huge amount of money to better use. The money now spent to convict and jail people for drug offenses could be spent on education and rehabilitation of people that get addicted to drugs.[/FONT] [FONT="]Forbidden fruit: [/FONT][FONT="]When you try to deny people something, you activate a very bad part of human nature. Some people, especially teenagers, always want what they are denied; it just makes them want it more. Many people are tempted and will always want the proverbial forbidden fruit. This part of our human nature is shown in the first book of the Bible. It tells us that forbidden fruit caused the downfall of mankind, and it is doing it in reality. It shows how great the problem is, and the only way to solve it is to remove all forbidden fruit that does not hurt other people.[/FONT] ----- From Page 229 of The Present (with religion) at Truth Contest
Great thread and ideas, are those all from Bill Maher or are those your thoughts and only the quote is from Bill Maher? I agree with all of what you said, with your main point that pushing drugs underground is not the right way to handle drugs in America and only make them a more dangerous problem Just like how the gateway theory makes no sense, because it says that marijuana is automatically a stepping stone to harder drugs, but in reality pushing marijuana underground is what makes it seem like a stepping stone. Bottom line, if you legalize marijuana and make it available through regulated establishments instead of only through drug dealers who often deal in harder drugs, then hard drug use will simply go down, period. I couldn't agree more with the fact you pointed out that we could be using the ridiculous amounts of money we spend with marijuana prohibition to much better use. If we stopped arresting for marijuana charges and began taxing marijuana, we could easily have at least 20 billion dollars to use on whatever we wanted, not to mention how many jobs would be created and how the other sectors of the economy would benefit indirectly Marijuana is the number one largest cash crop in the US, even while it's illegal, and all the profits are going to drug dealers instead of helping out our economy! And as for your thought about making drugs legal, well personally i feel decrim is the way to go, but those are our opinions. But you pointed out that we could have a lot more money to spend funding treatment centers for drugs instead of spending so much arresting for them and that is a very good point, that is what Portugal has done and it has worked wonderfully for them, our drug policy really has a lot to learn from them (check out this article for more on Portugal's drug decrim Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work? - TIME) Overall i feel you had a lot of good thoughts and sense in your post that i agree with very much, very nice
great thread its just people cant get it through there head and even if they do understand so many people just cant believe, they grew up thinking its wrong, all they hear is that its wrong, i mean if we just didnt care so much people would even notice pot anymore well as much
Thanks for your comments guys. Only the quote was from Maher, the rest was from the book mentioned in the link. Check it out, there are a ton of good ideas in there.