OnTheIce OnTheIce:
Curtman Curtman:
There is no evidence that drug use or addiction would go up under regulation. There is evidence exactly opposite to that due to better treatment, and having a regulated market that offers it. Dealers don't.
Nor is there evidence of this World you imagine where crime is reduced and the gangs split up and look for real jobs when some drugs are legalized.
There is though.
$1:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html
Twelve years ago, Portugal eliminated criminal penalties for drug users. Since then, those caught with small amounts of marijuana, cocaine or heroin go unindicted and possession is a misdemeanor on par with illegal parking. Experts are pleased with the results.
...
"Drug users aren't criminals, they're sick," Goulão says. Not everyone agrees -- Pinto Coelho, for example. But the anti-drug commission quickly agreed on this position, which formed the basis for Portugal's experiment in dealing with drug users without dealing in deterrents. Goulão repeats that statement often, as do members of his staff within the anti-drug program, as well as doctors at state-run drug clinics. More surprising is that a Lisbon police commissioner, whose officers spend their days searching for drugs, says it too.
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The Portuguese experiment has been in action since Law 30/2000 went into effect nearly 12 years ago, and Goulão's staff is currently calculating how much money the country's judicial system has saved, in its courts and prisons, now that it no longer has to process individuals the police catch with a few grams of drugs.
"The police still search people for drugs," Goulão points out. Hashish, cocaine, ecstasy -- Portuguese police still seize and destroy all these substances.
Before doing so, though, they first weigh the drugs and consult the official table with the list of 10-day limits. Anyone possessing drugs in excess of these amounts is treated as a dealer and charged in court. Anyone with less than the limit is told to report to a body known as a "warning commission on drug addiction" within the next 72 hours.
...
The number of teenagers who have at some point taken illegal drugs is falling. The number of drug addicts who have undergone rehab has also increased dramatically, while the number of drug addicts who have become infected with HIV has fallen significantly. What, though, do these numbers mean? With what exactly can they be compared? There isn't a great deal of data from before the experiment began. And, for example, the number of adults who have tried illegal drugs at some point in their lives is increasing in most other countries throughout Europe as well.
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"We haven't found some miracle cure," Goulão says. Still, taking stock after nearly 12 years, his conclusion is, "Decriminalization hasn't made the problem worse."
We've seen that treating drug addiction as a sickness instead of a crime has positive results. The Colorado/Washington experiment is to create a legal supply which is taxed and that revenue will be use to fund the treatment and prevention.
Colorado has forecast a billion dollars of marijuana sales for the year based on the first two months. That's a
billion dollars that will not go to gangsters as it otherwise would have. It goes to treatment, and education, including building new schools and recreation centres.
You have been saying all along that people would not pay for legal weed, that they would just keep buying it from dealers. Now we can say that you are wrong, definitively.
