Saturday, January 13, 2007

Sanity At Last?

Let me say up front, I don't use any drugs except nicotine and alcohol (caffeine is NOT a drug, it's my FRIEND!!!!) but I have long been viscerally opposed to the 'War on Drugs'. IMHO, half or more of the social problems we have in this country can be traced directly to this misguided legal abortion. If we legalized everything and taxed it, we solve most of those problems. The whole drugs/crime matrix is a death-spiral as we make drugs more illegal and expensive, it costs more to acquire the drugs and increases the desperation of the acquiree, leading to more crime (I won't even get into the gangs/money/drugs aspect of it.) And the oppressive (and racially/culturally biased) minimum mandatory sentencing laws just make the problem worse.

But it appears that hope may be at hand, at least on the mandatory sentencing part. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless. Any progress is progress.

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