I'm NOT sure this is the answer - and I don't advocate making it legal - but thought this was interesting:
The Netherlands (where most drugs are cannabis is legal) has so few criminals that it is now faced with the choice of shutting down its prisons and laying off the staff, or importing criminals from other countries like Belgium on a contract basis:
Quoted Text
During the 1990s the Netherlands faced a shortage of prison cells, but a decline in crime has since led to overcapacity in the prison system. The country now has capacity for 14,000 prisoners but only 12,000 detainees.
Deputy justice minister Nebahat Albayrak announced on Tuesday that eight prisons will be closed, resulting in the loss of 1,200 jobs. Natural redundancy and other measures should prevent any forced lay-offs, the minister said.
No, like most European countries they are just lazy and unproductive now, and actually don't even care if their nation gets over run by Islamic barbarian thugs and ceases to exist in 30 years. But that could also be a result of the gene pool being depleted of the best, brightest and bravest coming to the New World for the past several centuries too, while the cowards and socialists stayed behind to be kept down by a succession of monarchs, Bolshevists, nazis, communists and now Islamists. Someday I will tell you what I really think of the smelly scab on the earth that is Olde Europe. I wonder if i will be around to see America save it again? I hope not.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
If there was a way for the government to harness the sale of marijuana, and be the sole beneficiary of it's revenue, it would have been done decades ago. It is just too easy to grow the stuff ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE!
The private sector, if allowed to sell it, would not be able to compete with the price 'on the street'.
And further more........if they are banning the sale of cigarettes, smoking pot will just be placed in the same category.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
I believe it was called Soma in the book Brave New World.....and today in America it has a multitude of names....zoloft, Ambien, paxil, zyprexa, xanax valium was a biggie back in the day too......
Gee, I'm feeling enlightened like a european,,,or am I light headed,,,,damn,,,where did I put my beer???.....owwww,,,,I just found that sharp object....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Two recent articles in The Daily Gazette sent mixed messages concerning our country’s relentless campaign to eradicate certain types of plants. A Dec. 10 guest editorial, “Legalize medical marijuana in all 50 states,” contrasted with a short story in the local section on the same day: “Couple admits growing marijuana.” The editorial was published originally in the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press. It endorsed a narrow focus on medical issues in the expanding national debate about marijuana legalization. Yet the plant species in question is named cannabis, not “marijuana.” Cannabis medicines have existed for all of human history. By some estimates, nearly 25,000 different products can be manufactured from cannabis flowers, pulp, fi bers and seed oils; only a small portion of those products offer narcotic effects. Still, law enforcement’s pricey war targeting just one, marijuana, drags on. For example, the Dec. 10 Gazette report described how a successful University at Albany investigator and her husband were arrested, apparently for having an illicit “grow room” in a barn on their Duanesburg property. I thought that Wendy and Kenneth Knoebel seemed like decent, hardworking citizens. Now, both could lose their freedom for years, simply because they were ensnared by our society’s unforgiving anti-marijuana crusade. If the plants are for personal use, I think police agencies across America should leave people like the Knoebels alone. Who were they hurting? They appeared to be two responsible adults safely operating an indoor garden. After reading about this particular case and countless others, I believe that cannabis plants could be the real victims as well. In a large agricultural state such as New York, cannabis should be legalized — not just for medicinal needs, but for industrial and recreational purposes, too. I see no reason to exclude those options from any debate. Soon, I hope, the offi cial “marijuana” hysteria will be rejected for more sensible and humane laws allowing legal cannabis cultivation.
No, like most European countries they are just lazy and unproductive now, and actually don't even care if their nation gets over run by Islamic barbarian thugs and ceases to exist in 30 years. But that could also be a result of the gene pool being depleted of the best, brightest and bravest coming to the New World for the past several centuries too, while the cowards and socialists stayed behind to be kept down by a succession of monarchs, Bolshevists, nazis, communists and now Islamists. Someday I will tell you what I really think of the smelly scab on the earth that is Olde Europe. I wonder if i will be around to see America save it again? I hope not.
ha ha except for some minor details you have described Schenectady
Prohibition never works.....................Over $1 trillion spent on the war on drugs so far..............and btw how did those Dare programs work out?
BS DARE Worked fairly well. Can't believe people are still talking about pot being illegal. Meanwhile locals are still using the RICO laws to put young African-Americans in jail.
DARE and the war on drugs really haven't done anything. By the way, now, you need to give your DOB if you go into the store to buy cough syrup, because an underage kid might buy it to get drunk... but they don't actually check your ID, they just ask you.
BS DARE Worked fairly well. Can't believe people are still talking about pot being illegal. Meanwhile locals are still using the RICO laws to put young African-Americans in jail.
Are you serious? If DARE worked so well, then why was it ousted from most school districts in the US? Don't say funding, because that happened long before the current budget woes. DARE actually attracted more kids to drugs, than it discouraged.
The DARE program failed to meet any guidelines, federal or otherwise, that they be both research-based and effective. If it worked so well, then why is drug use at an all time high?
As to black people being prosecuted under the RICO act, you don't have to be Italian to be in organised crime, and the Mafia is quickly becoming a distant memory. There are black and hispanic gangs (currently controlling the majority of the drug traffic) that are doing business in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
Where are most of the drug related shootings occurring? It sure isn't in the white neighborhoods.
In fact, most organised crime now involves non whites.