In Dec 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and killed about 2300 people and we declared war against the Japanese and ended up fighting Germany/Hitler as well…
In Sept 2011, when the Towers and the Pentagon was attacked abt 3000 people died and we declared war
During his administration President Nixon declared that “addiction is public enemy number one” and he declared a war on drugs. Actually Nixon was a racist and didn’t like Blacks or those “Hippie types”… and that was the focus of his “war”. When this happened the NY Mafia controlled the vast majority of illegal drugs distribution.
I am binge watching Narco Wars on National Geographic and Congress has routinely passed laws that has pushed the production of illegal abuse substances out of the country… mostly to Mexico and for decades China has been a source for most of the chemicals that is used to make some of these illegal substances.
Today, it is claimed that abt 75,000/yr OD deaths from illegal drugs coming from China & Mexico… so in about 10 days as many people die as did in the attach on Pearl Harbor and in about 15 days the number of people that died in the 911 attack. Realistically we can’t declare war on China or Mexico. China has declared the making illegal Fentanyl is ILLEGAL and the penalty is pretty stiff.. but they don’t seem to be doing a very good job in stopping these chemical labs.
Our Congress has been consistent in how they deal with things that the Puritanical thread in our societal fabric considers “evil”… they first try to ban it and then when that fails they legalize it and tax it. They have done it with Tobacco, Alcohol, Gambling and now MJ. Often the taxes and fees to those who sell the particular product is so high, that the “cartels” can sell the product much cheaper and still make “boat loads of money”.
Many understand that addictions – all addictions – have a mental health component – we have some 30-40 million people addicted/abusing to some substance or activity. We could use the same tactics that Standard Oil used in the early 20th century to get rid of competition… under price the competition. We could take the illegal substances that we confiscate from the cartels… get a pharma or chemical company to standardize the product and get a pharma or other company to produce a standardized potency product to be provided to those who are going to find a way to get their “drug of choice”
Take alcohol as an example, the use/abuse of alcohol contributes to abt 100,000/yr deaths, but only abt 1,000 die from alcohol toxicity (OD). Could that be because the person abusing/addicted to alcohol… knows their limits and is able to get their “drug of choice” in a standardized potency.
We can go back to 2015 when Scottsburg, IN had a 200+ breakout of HEP B & C and HIV + https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/another-good-example-of-how-well-drug-prohibition-works/ because of sharing needles.. and the lifetime costs to treat each of these people could upward of $750,000 EACH… Scottsburg had a free needle exchange program until this year when the “local bureaucrats” decided that they were encouraging/condoning substance abuse. Of course, being a small, poor rural county it wasn’t their tax money that was going to pay for the medical treatment cost for those people.
How far could the 100 billion that we spend on the war on drugs go to provide – at low cost – to attempt to SHRINK the demand of illegal substances that some people like to abuse and perhaps put the cartels back on their heels
Filed under: General Problems
U know,,as i get older and mortality hangs in a balance I realized,I would legalize it all,,for the reason you state above.Furthermore the DEA, our government can’t handle the power they were given to stop illegal drugs.They have abuse that power soooo badly,legalizing it would be better.As in Portugal,when they legalized all of it,,,crime rates dropped,,addiction rates droppped,allll the bad that came w/the black market is gone.Jails are now empty of any ,”drug offenders,” and they get true medical help for their ,”issues,”,,Legal;ize all of it,,,and use the trillions of dollars saved,use it for healthcare for all w/out government interference of any kind,,,,jmo,,mryw
The politicians are making a killing on they’re street drug sales. Pun intended. Remember when that CIA Federal Building Exploded and firefighters found those Meth labs in the basement? Found drugs in baggies ready to hit the streets. That info came out in a Global News article. But Of course No US news media would cover it. They think we are stupid sheep. Its disgusting they’re killing our own people.
You mean$2Trillion?