Let US

Take Control of the War on Drugs    

ORGANIZATIONS:

Drug Reform Coordination Network          Common Sense

  National Drug Strategy Network

The Marijuana Policy Project, a national lobbying organization working to "minimize the harm associated with marijuana."
   And   links to many more

A Homegrown Model to Control and Tax the Drug Trade

The various regulatory mechanisms described below will assure that:

1- Teenage drug use will disappear, so our schools will be safer and more effective.

2- There will be less impaired drivers, so our roads will be safer.

3- Crime will decrease by over 80%, so the expensive of prisons will decrease.

4- New cases of AIDS and Hepatitis will drop by over 50% making our blood supply safer.

The mechanisms are these:

1- Purchase of regulated drugs will require 21 year old positive ID, which will be instantly recorded into a national database.

2- The purchaser will have to sign an agreement specifying the "warnings and conditions of use of this product"

3- The products and their packaging will contain serial numbers and chemical tags. Such that a dose of drug found anywhere can be quickly linked back to the purchaser

Why would any user choose such invasive and inconvenient regulations?

1- The controlled drugs will be much cheaper than "black market" drugs.

2- Safer places to purchase will reduce chance of robbery, assault, violent death.

3- Quality and purity will be FDA guaranteed.

4- Purchasers will have use of "free" [paid by product tax] counseling and health clinics - if they choose.

I invite local readers to visit

www.Macon-Bibb.com/drugs

for feedback and links to more information on this subject.

Thank-you for your consideration and attention to this situation.  

- Lindsay "Doc" Holliday, DMD  

www.hollidaydental.com

Macon, GA

Make illicit drugs legal and tax them

By Clyde D. Marlow, DDS, MS

The recent robberies and killings in Macon are reported to be related to the obtaining of money to purchase illegal drugs.

Authoritative reports have indicated that, from production cost to street value, the money involved in drug use is as one dollar to $1,000 - plus indicating the unbelievably huge profit in the illicit drug trade. This is its lifeblood; the only basis for its existence.

Since a drug user can realize, at most, 20 percent of market value in fencing his stolen goods, he must steal $2,000 of property to finance a weekly habit of $400. He must, and will, do anything - steal or kill - to support his chosen life. But what if:

• The illicit drug-trade problems were approached by eliminating the huge profits of the drug cartels and the street dealers?

• Drugs were to be, as became necessary with alcohol, regulated and offered by franchise at licensed stores for, say, $10 instead of $100 - eliminating the immense profits?

• Drugs were taxed at retail, as is alcohol?

To be sure, such a strategy would incur much disagreement and enmity among sincere people. It would feed the drug users' habits - but these are flourishing now!

There is also the question of whether the state endorses that which it legalizes; but government long ago ceased all pretense of virtue. Tax-stamp revenues from legalized drug sales (currently a tax-free industry) might be spent for human rehabilitation, or to reduce or eliminate the income tax for millions of earnest and legitimate, hard-working citizens.

Objections would arise that this would prey upon the disadvantaged - but we have lotteries, don't we? The question is whether it would be an acceptable trade-off by eliminating, arguably, sixty percent of the nation's crime - violence, theft, murder. Without their bloated profits, the drug cartels would desiccate, atrophy, and lose their evil power.

Granted, the problems are difficult, but he sporadic successes of present anti-drug policy are obviously too few and sadly inadequate, especially considering the continued violence.

Law-enforcement officers inform me that the "war on drugs" is not even close to being won. If society ever recognizes that the existing system actually makes possible and supports the criminal class - what then?

Dr. Clyde D. Marlow is a Macon dental surgeon.

http://www.macontelegraph.com/content/macon/2001/01/23/letters/viewpoints.htm