The bloody results of drug prohibition
source: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.rodricks29jul29,0,3117328.column
-
-
- JackHerer
- added this
Why are heroin and cocaine illegal? Why do we maintain this prohibition if the collateral damage from it is so vast and so enduring?
There's been a huge demand for these drugs for decades, a vast and lucrative market fully exploited by young men who, lacking other opportunities as lucrative, created distribution systems, formed gangs, armed themselves, killed to maintain their livelihoods, forced cities and towns to add police, forced states and counties to build more prisons and detention centers, made bad neighborhoods worse, intimidated law-abiding families, and ruined efforts at post-industrial urban progress. This underground commerce is responsible for a massive amount of violence and mayhem in Baltimore and other cities - and all because its top-selling products are illegal.
Drug addiction is a terrible thing. So is alcoholism. But booze and beer are legal, and Americans stopped killing each other over booze and beer 75 years ago.
There's been a huge demand for these drugs for decades, a vast and lucrative market fully exploited by young men who, lacking other opportunities as lucrative, created distribution systems, formed gangs, armed themselves, killed to maintain their livelihoods, forced cities and towns to add police, forced states and counties to build more prisons and detention centers, made bad neighborhoods worse, intimidated law-abiding families, and ruined efforts at post-industrial urban progress. This underground commerce is responsible for a massive amount of violence and mayhem in Baltimore and other cities - and all because its top-selling products are illegal.
Drug addiction is a terrible thing. So is alcoholism. But booze and beer are legal, and Americans stopped killing each other over booze and beer 75 years ago.
-
- groups:
- Community, News and Politics
-
- tags:
- Drug War Reform
