7 Stupid Issues in America Today

Issue # 5: WAR ON DRUGS

War on Drugs—This has been a vast failure for the past fifty years, and drug cartels are bigger

and badder now than ever before despite our federal government spending something like $15

billion annually. I think we could have found a better way to use that money. For $15 billion,

we could probably nuke the drug producing regions in Colombia and elsewhere. Not a politically

good thing to do, but it would effectively reduce part of the problem.

Here again, just because drugs have been illegal hasn’t stopped people from buying them and

using them. Instead, it has created an entire underground economy. I don’t support drug use

and think it’s a reprehensible activity, but let’s go ahead and legalize it, regulate it, and tax it.

The underground economy would virtually disappear, there wouldn’t be any need to be fighting

the drug cartels, violence along the border associated with drug cartels should go away, and the

governments can make money off the industry and use the funds for police and educating kids

about the dangers of drugs.

I’ve said it before if we want to pay for Social Security or Medicare or pay down debt let’s

decriminalize drugs and regulate and tax them. Taxes on cigarettes raise about $18 billion per

year for local and state government and the fed. In addition to taxes, there would be some

revenues generated for the government from the underground economy associated with drugs

as those monies filter into the broader, general economy. The tax revenue along with the

savings in spending on the war on drugs could help in many ways. Why waste money fighting a

losing battle?

Digger Cartwright