I disagree. Legalizing drugs would make the cartels even more wealthy, more powerful and more violent. Legalizaing drugs would undoubtedly increase the use. They would make more money simply from having more volume. The cartels could reinvest the large sums of money they spend on laundering and security on corrupting more government officials. These people that run the cartels are violent for the most part because they like violence. The money, power and most certainly the violence isn't going to go away by legalizing anything.
Like ending Prohibition made the alcohol gangs wealthier and more violent? You know better than that!
If mj were regulated along the lines of alcohol, there would be no reason to buy it from a cartel.
Why would legalizing drugs make the cartels more wealthy? That makes no sense. If drugs were legalized, production and sales regulated, the cartels would lose all the business. They'd go broke.
I'm definitely not for legalizing drugs like cocaine and meth and heroin though. Very few people actually use those drugs, but a portion of those few who do use those drugs cause us major problems. Prohibition is at least working in that it keeps those drugs expensive, and it has kept them such that for the most part they are not extremely available everywhere in this country. And while I think most people would be smart enough not to mess with them if we legalized them a few more would than do today and it wouldn't take many before we had double or triple or quadruple the number of hardcore problem causing addicts that we have today. That would be a disaster for us.
Marijuana is a different story though. More than half of all American adults under sixty have already tried it, over a 100 million Americans. Americans use more marijuana than all other illegal drugs combined. It is relatively cheap to use and can be found easily anywhere in this country even though it is illegal. It's not particularly addictive, unlike drugs like cocaine, heroin and meth. And it is the illegal drug that the Mexican drug trafficking organizations make most of their money from. Take marijuana away from them, grant permits to American farmers and let them grow it to be sold through licensed retailers, and we'd be depriving these Mexican drug trafficking organizations of the lion's share of their income. That would be a devastating blow to them, and I don't even think we'd have that much of an increase in the number of Americans who use marijuana. The far remote chance of getting caught and getting slapped on the worst isn't deterring many folks at all. Most people don't smoke it because there are plenty of good reasons not to smoke it that would still exist even if it was legal.
You mean the way repealing Prohibition made the Purple Gang even more powerful and wealthy.
Oh, sorry..you mean that didn't happen? Well repealing Prohibition surely made Capones gang rich beyond their wildest dreams.
Sorry...that didn't happen either.
The money, power and most certainly the violence isn't going to go away by legalizing anything.
I for one am getting really tired of the almost daily shootouts between the guys driving the Miller trucks and the Budweiser trucks. I mean we have dead beer truck drivers littering the streets in my neck of the woods.
Don't take this the wrong way, but you're an idiot.
L
If legal, the dealers would have competition from legitimate business. Competition always lowers the price. Thugs and gangs only exist because they are willing to break the law. That is also why the price is high. Remove that and prices will go down and there will be many more sources.
Even now drugs are so easily available to those who want them that it is doubtful that legalization would mean a significant increase in users.