Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Problem with Prohibition



Earlier in my blog we discussed many of the myths that are associated with marijuana. Whether marijuana is detrimental to an individual’s health I must confess is not my chief concern. I feel that this fact is merely one more reason that marijuana should be legal in this country.

The fact is that what makes marijuana dangerous is its illegality. The government regulates the alcohol industry because alcohol can be dangerous. Basically they figure that the risks associated with a person making moonshine in their basement are greater than if they step in and regulate the market. During prohibition they realized that people where going to drink no matter what. They learned this lesson at the expense of their own law enforcement agents and innocent people that got caught in the crossfire of prohibition.

Similarly the prohibition of marijuana creates a market that answers to no one. It is essentially the wild- west. Yet instead of bringing law and order to a market that will never be eradicated, they leave it in the hands of dangerous drug cartels and gangs that have little interest in whether or not young Billy gets some bad weed. In an age where terrorists are a local threat, can we waste the time, energy and manpower on marijuana? The DEA has nothing but band- aids for bullet holes and its time for a long-term solution

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