malcolm kyle

Wed, Nov 30, 2011 : 2:13 p.m.

The 'merry-go-round' of Prohibition has fallen clean off it's axle and trans-mutated into a veritable 'house-of-horrors' * It has created mega-violence, as in inner-city drive-by shootings or even bombs and mass killings in places like Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala etc. * It's impeding the medical use of marijuana for the sick or dying. * It's keeping an ever growing group of criminals extremely rich (it's a $400 billion industry) * It's saddled us with enormous enforcement costs - $50 billion a year, including approx. $12 billion just to enforce marijuana laws. * It's ruined families, even whole communities, by sending breadwinners to prison leaving their children dependent on the state. - Plus an estimated $40,000 loss to the community per prisoner. In addition to the societal cost of prohibition, it has a long history of driving the spread of harder drugs. * Poppies to morphine to heroine to krokodil * Coca to cocaine to crack * Ephedra to ephredrine to speed to methamphetamine * Marijuana to skunk to dangerous synthetic concoctions such as 'spice' or 'bath salts' * Mushrooms to ecstasy to 2CB/designers At every step the reasons for the rise in popularity of the new form of the drug are one or more of the following: * It may easier to smuggle. * It may be more addictive, thus compelling the buyer to return more frequently. * It may be cheaper to produce therefore yielding more profit. * Like a game of "whack a mole" a shutdown of producers in one area may give rise to business opportunities for another set of producers with a similar product. Imagine if we were to chop down every single tree on the planet as a response to our failure to prevent tree-climbing accidents. That's what our misguided drug policy looks like. Prohibition Prevents Regulation : Legalize, Regulate and Tax!

7718

Tue, Nov 29, 2011 : 11:33 p.m.

He was a good football player and left the university on a high note.