First of all, the unemployment rate would plummet. Above and beyond filling the millions of jobs that would come open as those using or selling drugs were locked up, additional jobs constructing thousands of additional prisons and working as guards in those prisons would be available for those of us who would not be locked up.
Of course, we would have to pay a much higher percentage of our income in taxes to pay for the construction of all those new prisons and the costs of incarcerating tens of millions of additional “criminals.”
All things considered, the effects of strict enforcement seem less than appealing. Coupled with the money flowing to those who fight the War on Drugs and the rampant corruption of our legal and judicial system that has occurred as a result of the War on Drugs, it becomes very clear why this “War” rages on and on with no end in sight - why we have not won the War on Drugs, and why, with our present approach, we never will.
If we want to end the War on Drugs, the momentum to do so will have to come from somewhere other than our corrupt and dysfunctional political and judicial system. It will have to come from drug users themselves. Civil disobedience is the key to ending the War on Drugs.
Mohandas K. Gandhi was able to lead India to independence using civil disobedience as his primary weapon. Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders led a successful, if incomplete, revolution with regard to civil rights using civil disobedience.
How would we apply the concept of civil disobedience to the War on Drugs? Users should stop hiding their habit from the authorities, including parents or other family members. Large groups of pot smokers and other casual drug users should show up on the steps of court houses and government buildings and fire up their doobies, joints, blunts and roaches, pop their pills, etc.
Would it be worth it to spend a little time in jail, if it led to the repeal of the laws that prohibit smoking marijuana or consuming prescription pills without a prescription? Those of you who consume illegal drugs will have to decide that for yourselves. But consider this: if civil disobedience proved effective, you could eventually indulge in your habit at a greatly reduced price and without the fear and paranoia that presently affects most users.
Article comments
1 - malcolm kyle
Prohibition is a sickening horror and the ocean of incompetence, corruption and human wreckage it has left in its wake is almost endless.
Prohibition has decimated generations and criminalized millions for a behavior which is entwined in human existence, and for what other purpose than to uphold the defunct and corrupt thinking of a minority of misguided, self-righteous Neo-Puritans and degenerate demagogues who wish nothing but unadulterated destruction on the rest of us.
Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most normal thinking people in the direction of sensible regulation.
By its very nature, prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model - the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous, ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the huge profits involved.
Many of us have now, finally, wised up to the fact that the best avenue towards realistically dealing with drug use and addiction is through proper regulation which is what we already do with alcohol & tobacco, clearly two of our most dangerous mood altering substances. But for those of you whose ignorant and irrational minds traverse a fantasy plane of existence, you will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to the absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society.
There is an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. If you are not capable of understanding this connection then maybe you're using something far stronger than the rest of us. Anybody 'halfway bright', and who's not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem, it is our refusal to allow legal businesses to meet that demand.
No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, diminution of rights and liberties, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safer, only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?
If you still support the kool aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.
"A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
Abraham Lincoln
The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation while turning even our schools and prisons into black markets for drugs. Regulation would mean the opposite!
2 - Elvira Black
Very funny stuff. Is this a satire?
There is not enough room in the jails to lock up every user. Plus, prohibition didn't work for alchol, which is arguably more potentially dangerous than marijuana, which has medicinal uses.
I predict that more and more states will legtalize medical marijuana, and eventually the Supreme Court may decriminalize its use.
It is also worth noting that in Amsterdam, where pot shops abound, the governement taxes the shops though technically they are illegal. The majority of users are tourists.
Simply because you are a teetotaler, it is unrealistic to think that you can stop people from altering their state of consciousness.
Legalizing weed and taxing it, as we do liquor, would help the economy substantially as well.
We are in thrall to the drug industry, which now considers us consumers who can ask their doctor for pills for anything from insomnia to depression to erectile dysfunction. Consider the warnings which the commercials contain, which can include, well, death. Countless lawsuits have been brought against the major drug companies, which make enormous profit.
Thus, the war on drugs might include a rethinking of our dependence on prescription drugs and the active commercialization for an industry which grosses billions of dollars in profits.
3 - Cannonshop
Civil disobedience won't do it-getting the right people to run for office, and then getting them to WIN, will.
unfortunately, the Drug War is a huge employer-on both sides of the criminal divide, and unlike prohibition of alcohol, the prohibition directed at narcotics is internationally viewed as legitimate (more or less), meaning there's really no pressure on Pols to change things. (Particularly democrat Pols,who care more about what the International Community thinks, than what their own constituents do.)