IG, it is PRIMARILY the black market environment (along with personal choices) that produce these results. Surely you've never heard of anyone claiming to have worked two or three minimum wage jobs in order to pay for the black market prices of their habit; prices that are the direct result of the prohibition of these drugs.
Only people who earn the wages of doctors, lawyers and politicians; the pillars of society) could possibly manage that. And please don't tell me that you actually believe that the latter addict does not exist. Say it ain't so, please IG. Please tell me that you don't really believe this.
But everyone else ends up resorting to illegal activities for quick cash. Removing the illegal element drives prices down, removing the illegal profit value and thereby removing the necessity of the violent criminal element. No one is going to go killing people in the street over competition or debts; no one is going to go sell their tail for something they can pick up with a permit at any legal dispensary or grow or manufacture themselves.
And no, I do not relish the idea of an MD operating on me when he's coked out or hung over, but like you said, that is a matter of the MD's personal character, and unfortunately we are all connected in this sense. But I will say that I have no problem what so ever with employers doing random drug testing.
Are overpaid, door smashing, uniformed goons with guns truly going to save us from ourselves? I don't see where they have been much of a deterrent thus far. It would have been interesting to see what would have come of the Volstead act had it continued for say another twenty years.
I just don't get how people do not make the connection between the prohibition and the crime and corruption element. If it were not alcohol or marijuana, it would be something else. And like I said, people will weigh the odds and do what they will, and I feel, they'll do so even more fervently out of defiance because somebody said "no you can't". It's just the childish natures of some.
Many growers here in Oregon with whom I've talked are from out of state and have told me that they stopped smoking all together after they became "legal" because the act of defiance was no longer there and it just wasn't "fun" any more. It seems to me that the more you try to tighten your grip on people, the more they will defy.
On my very first command in the Navy; an Admirals Garrison Flagship no less, they tried imposing "Cinderella liberty" (0000 hours) for all E-4 and below in foreign ports to discourage intoxication and to maintain the high image of the Admirals Staff
, (yeah sure buddy). It was a disaster! That first night out there were a dozen cases of alcohol poisoning due to guys trying to get in as much party time as they could before midnight, and the shore patrol must have brought in half the crew for fighting and other related incidents.
Command issued a statement threatening severe consequences for further incidents and yet it had no effect. Same result in the next port. I believe it was Victoria, Canada. We were scheduled for a four day stop and on the second night, a large bunch of the crew ranging from low grade officers on down wrecked a very nice club while brawling with an even larger bunch of locals. But, everyone made it back to the ship before midnight
. The local authorities knew it was us because we were the only ship in port, and they informed command, but no one,
not one of the crew involved said a word and none of the Canadian authorities were allowed on board to question any one.
We set back to sea at 0430 that same morning. Fastest turn around I ever saw.Everyone got a ship wide "reaming" from the "Man" on the flight deck for about an hour and a half and we screwed ourselves out of our
liberty at our Portland and Pearl Harbor stops, which were always pretty good ones. So then it was seven weeks sailing around in circles in the Sea of Japan, a decent typhoon, and then Yakusaka. No "Cinderella liberty" this time, and what do you know, not one incident. Go figure.Just human nature I guess, but back to how it relates to the marijuana issue. If you ever watch "Cops" when they raid a house and recover maybe an ounce of coke, a couple guns, and maybe a pound or two of marijuana; and you tally up total street value (and I mean actual street value and not the inflated taxable numbers that the officials give) then weigh it with the cost in man hours to the tax payer, you would find that the majority of the time the tax payers pay more money to get these amounts (that are puny in comparison with what isn't seized) off the street than what they would actually be worth were they regulated and taxed. Seems very counter productive. But as I stated before, it is in our natures to cut off our noses to spite our own faces.
Very rarely will aggressive and militant action save anyone from themselves in the long term. I've seen the faces first hand IG and I agree that it is tragic and painful to see people destroy themselves, but from my point of view, the whole prohibition
industry on both sides, legal or illegal are thriving while the user is swept away in the profitable wake created by it.
Much more can be achieved by removing the black market profit element, than will ever be achieved by attempting to impose prohibitive standards of CONSENSUAL behavior upon a so called free society.
