So nobody thinks that if drugs are legalized crime will increase? Sure, the actual crime of posession and distro will be nil, but what about crimes the result from the sudden rise in drug usage. It would be like dropping the legal age of drinking down to 16. A sudden flood of people who normally would not have used, to start.
I suggest you check out
this page about prohibitionFindings:
1. Prohibition didn't measurably drop the drinking rate of alcohol after the first couple years (1920-1933)
Pure alcohol consumed:
2. They showed a marked tendency towards higher concentration versions of alcohol (IE liquer instead of beer)
3. People substituted other, more dangerous drugs
4. Deaths went up, both from alcohol poisonings and murder.
5. Crime went up during prohibition, and came back down afterwards
Murder rate:
Now, think about this. We're seeing the same trends with illegal drugs today as we did with prohibition. Why should the ending of the prohibition on MJ, cocaine, etc have any different effects?
I mean, if they didn't see a huge rise in alcohol consumption when prohibition ended, why should we expect a rise in usage if other drugs are legalized? You see, there is a whole crime industry fed by the prohibition. Since what they're doing is illegal(though highly profitable), they can't depend upon police resources to protect them, the courts to enforce their contracts, etc... So they react to defend themselves. If they're the victim of a crime, they don't dare go to the police. Territory(sales locations) have to be defended. Think about this: In many areas the majority of murders are drug related. Note: I'm including things like gang wars over territory. The majority of theft crimes are drug related.
They substitute Meth for cocaine(I don't think Meth would normally be a replacement for MJ), because Meth is easier to get/make than cocaine. Just like there was a marked preference for hard liquers because liquer was easier to smuggle than beer. So the cost of beer went up around three times as much as liquer. A marked preference towards more compact, eaiser to smuggle forms of drugs dominates in a black market. The downside of this is that more compact drugs are also easier to OD on, and when they adulturate the stuff back down they frequently use chemicals that are nastier than the drug.
Besides, if you drop the price of drugs down, it takes less money to support a habit. Get them on a slower effect drug of constant strength and they're more likely to be able to hold a paying job. Drop the price and you eventually drive the street dealers and producers out of business. While illegal commercial alcohol production still occurs, but it's statistically insignificant. Sure, some people homebrew, but that's like working on your own car or having a garden. Some tobacco smuggling occurs, but it's mostly independent people driving to a different state, buying legal cigarettes, then bringing back across the state line. Sure it's tax evasion, but the product itself is held to the same standards as the legal stuff. It's like buying medicines from canada to avoid high prices.
Ultimately, a treatment center is cheaper than jail/prison. Legalizing and taxing these drugs would drop the usage of the most unsafe versions, and the taxes could go towards helping the nonfunctional addicts and mitigating the harm abusers cause. Organized crime would drop substantially, since their largest profit line would disappear.
