378.4 Billion The Free Market Is Alive And Well

[JWeeks]

Originally Posted by Moot

You are so naive, Weeks. FYI, after the British and Americans got rich hooking the entire continent of China on opium, it took a Mao Cultural Revolution to finally end the Chinese addiction to opium. Millions were executed. People don't just stop an addiction, even under the threat of death.

It might not hurt to educate yourself on the history of illegal drugs and how they got that way, Weeks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQlk01sxO_E

At the turn of the last century in the US, people could buy heroin through the Sears & Roebuck catalog. But even with it's easy access, there were probably only 200,000 addicts in the entire country. Then because of Protestant missionarys causing a media hype about drug addicts and lobbying congress, the US passed a law criminalizing opiate drugs. Most of the people who were instantly made criminals and arrested were medical doctors. After the criminalization of heroin, the drug actually gained in popularity, which in turn created more criminals, which in turn created more law enforcement, which in turn created more prisons and here we are today, creating more criminals, more law enforcement, and more prisons. Right wing conservatives seeing a business opportunity have made incarcerating people a commercial enterprise and need criminals to fill the cells and so they lobby for harsher sentences and get them. Conservatives don't want the drug trade to stop because it's bad for their business and makes them look tough on criminals.

Supply and demand is the essence of laissez fair economics also known as the free market and the core of your beliefs. Don't the blame the people for their drug addiction, blame your fukin free market belief system and the manipulation of our laws that protects it.

Supply and demand is the essence of all economics. Where there is a sufficient demand, a supply will develop regardless of the government's best efforts to keep that demand from being satisfied.

I don't disagree with the points you make here. The history of addiction is a long and tragic one and many are, indeed, powerless to pull themselves out of the hell that they have entered into. And your point that many people have made money from the criminalization of illegal drugs is also true, from the drug cartels to those who incarcerate those who are caught.

None of which invalidates my fundamental point. Drug cartels would go out of business, prisons would have to find different criminals, etc., if people magically stopped using drugs, illegal or otherwise.

People, of course, will not stop using drugs, drugs will continue to be forbidden to citizens (even though I believe that all federal laws against illegal drugs are unconstitutional), people's lives will be greatly be harmed due to drug usage, people on many levels will profit from the drug trade, and those involved at all levels will have to accept responsibility for that portion of blood that they have on their hands.