Blogger Paully Joseph asks his readers if it's time to decriminalise drugs, claiming that we need to learn from previous periods of prohibition. He argues that criminalising any product creates both a market for it as well as inviting crime. Is he right?
'Criminalizing any product has been proven in history to create a dark marketplace. Perhaps the best example is the period of prohibition of alcohol in the United States from 1920 - 1933 after the passing of the 18th amendment to the Constitution. Criminalizing alcohol directly contributed to rise in crime rates, rise of crime syndicates, and poor quality alcohol coming to market causing a 400% rise in alcohol poisoning related deaths. Think about this and compare it to what is happening today.
We have huge crime syndicate and drug cartels around the globe. Drugs have become a huge black market business and the violence they cause directly and indirectly is in the news daily. We spend billions of dollars trying to stunt its growth and get ahead of the criminals. Sounds awfully similar to 1920 in the US. Politicians and media showcase the drugs themselves as bad. But the fact is, drugs are things, and things some/many people want.
They are not bad in and of themselves - they are things. When they cannot be obtained legally and safely, they are obtained illegally, and a dirty element of society turns that into a business driven by greed and riddled by violence.
So do we keep spending billions of dollars trying to beat the cartels and the syndicates, and billions of dollars on media campaigns preaching the immorality of drugs? Or, do we change our paradigms? I am in the camp of saying take all the wind out of the drug business by legalizing and controlling the substances. This destroys the dirty, dark marketplace, provides a new source for tax revenues, ensures substance quality is high and safety of the user maximized, and divert the money spent on policing the black market drug trade globally to fight poverty, and climate change and disease. We have created the drug business by criminalizing it. Let's get smart and kick the legs right out from under it.' https://www.hubub.com/253017/257598
What do you think? Does he have a point?
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