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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldworldnet who wrote (708910)	10/26/2005 2:01:09 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

"It decreases use," I'd say that the evidence is very mixed on that score.... "but it is expensive and funds criminal organizations." All true... not to mention the huge expansion of federal authority that it has engendered, reaching into nearly every facet of modern life (financial regulations, loss of privacy, tens of billions in annual compliance costs for businesses, 'asset forfeiture' regulations which reverse our constitutionally guaranteed presumption of guilt... so that the accused must PROVE their innocence... not the otherway around). The modern 'Big Brother' federal state would not be possible without the powers granted to it (extra-constitutionally, I contend) by the federal illegal drug codes. Corruption of officialdom (law enforcement and government) is also a serious by-effect, not to mention the public's loss of respect for law and government. Then there is the matter of the Opportunity Cost.... What BETTER USE could those hundreds of billions of dollars have been put to? I believe that if they were 'returned' to our citizens (in the form of lower taxes, and lower deficits), their individual lives would have been better, and the problem of the personal abuse of drugs measurably lesser.