Pezz:
<<I would also like to see some re thinking of current laws regarding victimless crimes.....>>
And that's another thing!<g>
I live in Nevada, where prostitution is legal, and it's legalization doesn't seem to have created any problems - may well have cured, or alleviated some.
And then there's drugs.
I once saw our current President, the one who gave a pardon to a convicted drug smuggler when he was a Governor, say he'd never advocate legalizing drugs because he'd seen the damage they'd caused. He neglected to say that the damage was caused when drugs were illegal - and maybe because drugs are illegal.
How much crime in this country is not only drug related, but also only a crime because drugs are illegal? People have always done, or used, things that make them feel better. I'm not an advocate of drug use, but to make someone a criminal for putting something harmful into their bodies seems like a cruel, and ineffectual, way to address the problem.
It's a cultural problem, not a criminal problem.
If they were legal, drugs would be much cheaper and their quality better controlled, and users wouldn't have to rob people, prostitute themselves, etc. to get enough money to make their buys. The present crop of dealers would have no incentive to hook new users, because there'd be no profit in it. We could dismantle the DEA and other narco units (which seem to me to be evolving into a paramilitary force unconcerned with maintaining our civil rights, and therefore of greater risk to this country than someone mistakingly trying to cope with their life by using some drug), and put a part of the money saved into a massive ad campaign that ridicules drug use - make users a pitiable and laughable object - as one way to remove the counter-culture cachet. Use some more of the saved dollars for supportive treatment centers for those who've decided, on their own, to kick their habit.
I won't hold my breath, though, as there's so much money and power involved in keeping drugs illegal that I can't see our self-serving politicians doing it on their own.
Every time I see some politician or bureaucrat declaiming as to how we're winning the war on drugs, I see a hypocrite - or worse.
If we can't keep drugs out of the most rigidly controlled element of our society - the prisons, how can we ever win a war on drugs in a free society? |
