Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal

Legalize it, tax it, and release non-violent drug offenders.

Let the taxes pay for treatment and regulation and pocket the money we save on not having so many prisons.

Private prisons have nothing to do with it. They are a relatively recent phenomenon. Drugs have been illegal for the best part of a century. And for most of that time, government prisons housed the prisoners.

We keep doing what we have been doing because no one wants to admit defeat, particularly in government. If we legalize most drugs tomorrow and the problem greatly abates, what does that say about the wisdom of the policies we have been pursuing since before I was born - and the politicians who enforced those laws?

Politicians are reluctant to undermine their own self-image of being competent and having the answers to problems.

Another marxist demonizing corporate America......dumbass moron..... Originally Posted by ChoomCzar

What's this? An attempt to salvage something from the idiotic post you previously threw up on this topic? You know, the one that everybody agrees shows how stupid, uninformed and out of touch you are?

But, DAMN, you defended capitalism and got your bizarre, repetitive, outdated 1950-80's commie insult in. Way to go jackass, nice one.

Drug abuse will always decline in a decriminalized position.
The ridiculous and exorbitantly costly prohibition only lines the pockets of the organized crime figures and those that fight against it. The rest are victims, not of drugs, but of the war on drugs.