How big is the narcotics industry?

[Roark]

Quote from brokenmarkets:

50% of californians voted yes to legalization..so why is it illegal??? how can something be illegal if 50% of the population don't agree it's illegal.

You have to distinguish between something that is illegal and both illegal and immoral. Pot is illegal, but it is not immoral. Nobody much cares if you smoke pot. Tax evasion is illegal, but not immoral, albeit it is a very serious crime in the eyes of the authorities. Tax evaders do serious time, even if they are famous actors.

Sex with a child in contrast is both illegal and immoral. People freak if they learn a registered sex offender is living on their block. It's cool to smoke pot or do blow, but doing your 6 year old step-daughter or niece is not too cool.

 

[bat1]

Quote from brokenmarkets:

How much is the war on drugs costing the taxpayer? in policing and prisons?

Americans need to change the drug laws. Portugal legalize all drugs and drug use has declined.

Even though pot and alcohol is legal many people don't get drink on whisky everyday.

since it's a recession, it's not about reducing taxes but reducing gov't expenditures..prisons and war on drugs....one state in kansas or some spent 2 million dollars /year in finding pot growers an burning the plant. pot is same as whisky. that is 2 miillion dollar gov't waste when california is growing pot..and all the prisons costing 30,000/year in prisons.

cut stupid gov't spending like the war on drugs...it ain't working for 50 years...only recently like the 90's and 80's have drug us and organize street gang scene has been this bad...the drug scene in the 60's was nothing like it is today. neighborhoods are filled with gangsters property value drop and people leave urban cities because of too much crime on wall street.

crime in the city is bad because it lowers property values and increase gov't spending in policing and prisons..and 50% of crimes is drug related. 30% of city budget for policing drug related crimes

crime is bad for business too..insurance goes up if business get burgularized too much and people don't shop at crime riddent neighborhoods.

Your right on many things, but this is America and nothing
makes sense!

like Why is weed just a traffic fine in one state and 5 yr Prison
term in a other state?

 

[Roark]

Quote from bat1:

Your right on many things, but this is America and nothing
makes sense!

like Why is weed just a traffic fine in one state and 5 yr Prison
term in a other state?

The main problem is the US federal government, from Wikipedia:

As a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970, marijuana (cannabis) is considered to have "no accepted medical use" and is illegal for any reason, with the exception of FDA-approved research programs.... The federal government of the United States continues to argue that smoked cannabis has no recognized medical purpose (pointing to a definition of "medical purpose" published by the DEA, not the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, or the office of the U. S. Surgeon General and the U. S. Public Health Service) -- many officials point to the difficulty of regulating dosage (a problem for treatment as well as research) despite the availability (in Canada and the U. K.) of dosage-controlled Sativex.

One way to solve the problem is to get the US Supreme Court to find a right to smoke pot somewhere in the US Constitution. It's probably in there immediately after the part about the right for gay people to marry. Alternatively, get Congress to pass legislation repealing pot as a drug subject to the Controlled Substances Act, and get Obama to sign it.

 

[Rearden Metal]

Quote from Roark:

The main problem is the US federal government, from Wikipedia:

As a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970, marijuana (cannabis) is considered to have "no accepted medical use" and is illegal for any reason, with the exception of FDA-approved research programs.... The federal government of the United States continues to argue that smoked cannabis has no recognized medical purpose (pointing to a definition of "medical purpose" published by the DEA, not the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, or the office of the U. S. Surgeon General and the U. S. Public Health Service) -- many officials point to the difficulty of regulating dosage (a problem for treatment as well as research) despite the availability (in Canada and the U. K.) of dosage-controlled Sativex.

One way to solve the problem is to get the US Supreme Court to find a right to smoke pot somewhere in the US Constitution. It's probably in there immediately after the part about the right for gay people to marry. Alternatively, get Congress to pass legislation repealing pot as a drug subject to the Controlled Substances Act, and get Obama to sign it.

Politicians want control, not freedom. Freedom has to be <b>fought for</b> constantly, and today's generation doesn't have a whole lot of fighting spirit left. Part of the problem is modern demographics: Successful resistance to bad gov't policies tends to come from young, college aged people.* We have very few of those who are willing to do anything at all to make their nation a better place to live. On the other hand we have absolutely no shortage of status-quo loving sheep who have every intention of sitting idly by as politicians and lawyers completely ruin our country.

*Recommended reading= This book!:
<img src=http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51c1SbOogfL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg>

After a few pages you'll probably start thinking "I'm probably too old for this book. It was written for a younger audience than I." In fact, after just a couple pages I even put this down for a few weeks before giving it a second chance. Just keep reading, and you'll totally appreciate why you are absolutely NOT too old for this book! Nobody is.

 

[TGregg]

Quote from Runningbear:

If the US government legalized coke and taxed it, they could pay of the deficit in a few short years.

If Uncle Sam legalized drugs and taxed the bejebbers out of them, expenditures would rise by 120% of the additional revenues. More money = going broke faster in a messed up system, just like lottery winners.

 

[ElCubano]

Quote from peilthetraveler:

prove it...show us the math.


Only about 1% of the population uses cocaine(3 million people). To pay off the deficit in just 10 years, those users would have to be paying about $40,000 per month in cocaine tax and thats not even adding in the cost of the product. If you are spending that much money on coke every month, you would be dead by the end of the week.

Hey...maybe we should legalize it then....all the cokeheads will die in a week and the war on drugs will be over.

So what you are saying is that about 60,000 people per state use coke. Maybe that alone on South Beach.

Imagine the savings and then the earnings potential throught taxation and running bear aint too far off, but thats not the point.

 

[Wallace]

"Because the Canadian marijuana industry is illegal, it operates almost entirely off
the books, generating virtually no tax revenue and precious few records.
So estimates of what it's worth to the B.C. economy are all over the map. But even
the small numbers are big, with estimates starting at around $3 billion a year and
rising as high as $20 billion, double the legal revenue generated by B.C.'s forest industry.
The Wikipedia puts the number at $6 billion. Britain’s Guardian newspaper puts it at
$20 billion. In 2006, the B.C. forest industry's direct economic activity totalled about
$10 billion, representing 7.4 per cent of the province's GDP."
http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2010/10/bad-news-bc-decriminalization-coming-usa-0

last weekend:
"The 10 people shot on Vancouver's westside early Sunday morning were attending
a party at Best Neighbours restaurant for gang members, none were innocent bystanders
Vancouver police said Monday."
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/As...lowing+night+terror+mayhem/3965577/story.html
no deaths this time, gang murder totals in the past couple of years are into a couple
of score including 2 innocent victims executed because of being in the wrong place
at the wrong time. shootings have occurred in very public places, parking lots of malls
on the street beside shops, while a car is being driven, but so far no bystander has
been hit
while the action is - or is that was ? - out of character for Vancouver, it doesn't come
close compared to other cities in the US for instance, but nothing comes close to
what's happening in Mexico where drug/gang murders have topped 11,000 this year
and estimated to be around 30,000 for the last 4 years, but concerning is the idea
that Mexico may be becoming a 'failed state'

what's going on with 'drug crime' seems very similar to the US 'Prohibition', between
1919-33 when " . . . the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol were banned
nationally as mandated in the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution."
and judging by the old movies I've watched ". . . it tended to undermine society by
other means, as it stimulated the proliferation of rampant underground, organized
and widespread criminal activity." see 'Society' in the article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States

it seems then that Prohibition creates a much larger problem rather than preventing
what isn't a problem to begin with