As our new president puts healthcare reform into place he should get rid of drug prohibition at the same time, build in detox for those who can benefit from it and drug maintenance programs for those who can’t. This would take the drug abusers out of the hands of the courts, prisons, military, DEA, FBI and local police and turn them over to the Nation’s doctors, hospitals and their own friends and families where they have always belonged – and offset the costs of the entire healthcare system by billions.
The dealers, traffickers, cartels, street gangs, gun runners and terrorist incomes will dry up just like it did for Al Capone and his ilk when FDR made the same call on the prohibition of alcohol. As for the marijuana users (who comprise 75% of the “drug problem”), there will be no impact on the healthcare system except for its beneficial medical uses (You can’t overdose on pot, its not addicting and it’s not a “gateway” drug) and the billions in tax revenue its regulation will produce.
It’s a win-win for everybody. The new health care system gets a boost, our tattered constitution gets a patch or two by eliminating the need to provide probable cause for all those baggies found on the ground, institutional corruption will take a major hit, homicides will drop like a stone, the president’s new drug czar won’t have to make things up about the government’s effectiveness in fighting the War on Drugs and the rest of the world won’t have to suffer from our continuing need to ratchet up more and more repression in the name of our failed drug policies.
