From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!houxi!houxj!wapd
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Legalization of Drugs
Article-I.D.: houxj.109
Posted: Thu Jun 24 13:06:55 1982
Received: Mon Jun 28 01:00:48 1982


	I agree with GREG of hao that drugs that are presently
illegal should be legalized.  My rationale for this is given
below, and it is based more on practical grounds rather than
any good moral argument.

	Several harmful things are happening today.  We have
addicts committing crimes to get drugs.  We have organized
crime making enormous profits from the sale of drugs.  We spend
lots of money to patrol our borders, and good portion of that
is directed at drug-smugglers.

	One way to reduce or eliminate these problems is to attack
the root of the problem.  That is, we could eradicate drug use by
convincing or forcing people to stop taking drugs.  We could
convince or force people to stop growing or making drugs.  However,
the government has tried to do these things and has failed.

	Another approach is to legalize the drugs.  This would
eliminate the profits to organized crime and eliminate the
drug-smuggling (both depend on assumption that private enterprise
is more efficient than organized crime).  We would still be left
with addicts committing crimes, and hurting innocent people in
the process.

	I am not particularly happy with this solution, but it
is probably better than today's state of affairs.

						Bill Dietrich
						houxj!wapd