I think that is so fucked up... For the most part, the only harm a pothead does is to them self if any... the majority of the problems caused is from the fact that pot is illegal and it takes a black market to distribute it... and that is not going to change because to many high up people will lose mega money that goes with the black marketing. The cost to lock a harmless pothead up for every tax payer is fucking crazy and that money could be far better utilized elsewhere. It is the tax payer that bears the cost for protecting ourselves from the harmless... Now theres a laugh...
As far as harder drugs are concerned, I think the laws should be very different than they are. If someone wants to stick needles in thier arm, smoke a crack pipe, or snort all thier worldly possessions up thier noses, I say let them... Give them access to the drugs legally and a regulated zoned area where they can really fuck their lives up, if thats what they want to do, away from the general public and then impose punishment for being out of desinated areas. The cost to keep a confined area policed would be far less than it is to fight the drug war the way they are doing it now and could be funded directly from the drugs.
We could take a small portion of the money that we would save from housing the would be prisoners and the savings from policing the drug blackmarket and build some of the best rehab available for those who make a bad decission and want to change. There would be some major money left over that could do some really great things to benefit many people...
I wonder how many of our elder folks out there that can't afford needed medications could get what they needed from the $30K it takes to house just one prisoner for just one year that never hurt anyone... I wonder how much of our tax money is spent at the hospital fixing up people for deals going bad when the cops show up... I wonder how much of our tax money goes to medical care of these locked up people... Since it's my tax money being spent, I would be much happier to see some 80 year old that was not able to provide for themselves getting the medical attention they needed than I would to see some young buck that can work harder and longer than I get it. Heck, these people get what ever medical services they needed from my (and yours) tax money while I had no medical insurance of my own for many years. There are so many of us paying to take care these people after we have paid to remove them from the public that can't afford to fulfill our own medical needs... Isn't that really fucked up bigtime... I could go on as I am sure many others could too but to what point...
Just a bit of MHO...
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06-03-2005
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