Wednesday, December 10, 2008

26. I Asked Timothy Leary...

...and he couldn't help me either. It's a lyric from The Who's "The Seeker."

To dive into what I want to talk about and before I do, I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not take, give, or endorse the use of the stuff I am going to talk about, but just my pure opinion. I believe in order to defeat the "War on Drugs," there must be one thing done: Legalization. AHHH! Did I shock you with what I said? I know that drugs have gotten way out of hand, we have the government cracking down on what is deemed illegal, people tweaking over chemical substances (and outright looking like morons might I add), and gangs using drugs as a source of power. Legalize drugs and you take away all the money spent on the man power and other resources used to "crack" down on offenders. You will also stop the gangs having so much power depending on how much drugs they can get their hands on. It won't stop gangs, but it will hit them where it hurts. Plus, for some an adverse effect will take affect: legalization means no more thinking you could get away with doing it and therefore people will not feel like they are defeating "the man."

Yes, drugs are stupid and if I had my wish they would be gone, but some of them like pot and cocaine occur naturally in nature and should be treat as just. Alcohol and cigarettes are legal and people get hooked on those, hell, cigarettes can give you cancer while one can develop cirrhosis from drinking too much. At least marijuana should be legal if cigarettes and alcohol are legal. Marijuana would be the cigarettes version of alcohol because of the affects it has (alcohol being the adult drink compared to soda and other soft drinks). Just saying that you can tax the stuff and it might help the nation out economically.

Dealers also have to find real jobs because there will be no use for them standing on a corner. Legalization takes away jobs that shouldn't be needed in the first place (legal or illegal) and causes people who want to be stupid enough to do any drug the privilege (not a right) to do so without interference. Sure there will still be Betty Ford clinic among other rehabs and people will still be charged for over doing it like when someone behaves after having a little too much to drink.

Legalization takes away a lot of problems, that's all i'm saying. I hate drugs myself and will never take them, but we have alcohol and cigarettes around and those are just as harmful.

5 comments:

Jessica said...

Does it shock you that I agree with you? :P

The thing is that the government has never realized that trying to control everything barely does any good. And this isn't just with drugs....it's fighting other people's wars. It's requiring people to be licensed for practically everything they do these days.

If so many things were not illegal, I believe we wouldn't have half the problem we do now. Sure, people would probably still abuse drugs. But wouldn't it be nice if there were no need for a black market?

Chris said...

Actually it does shock me that you agree with me!

Anonymous said...

Notice how teens get drunk more often the 3 years before turning 21 than they do the 3 years after turning 21. I don't know if its true, but sometimes forbidding something makes it more tempting. If weed was legalized, we would have more users but most people would still not turn to drugs.

Chris said...

Very true, but getting rid of the temptation also gets rid of the ridiculous amounts of money spent to track down drug offenders.

Jessica said...

I also think that certain drugs may be illegal because the US economy actually needs that money pumping into the black market. Hence the marijuana fields they were trying to keep from getting destroyed... :/