Answering the Libertarian argument for drug legalization

[AceArcher]

Originally Posted by bmac

I am skeptical of this statement. Do you have any source info?



This argument relies on the assumption that store bought legal weed would be cheaper than some bought on the street. I'm very curious about whether illicit marijuana sales have ceased in Colorado since it was legalized. How many packs of cigarettes are illegally imported and sold in New York state each year? Are we really naive enough to think that the drug lords in south America will stop shipping pot over the border once it is legal here? Or are we now going to legally buy from those murderers?

There is no simple answer to this.

some links to relevant discussion on the topic.

from wikipedia

Drug policy of Portugal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Drug policy of Portugal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Drug policy of Portugal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

from business insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/portu...n-works-2012-7

cato institute: http://www.cato.org/publications/whi...-drug-policies


all of the above relate to portugal, if you want to similar results for the netherlands just do a google search for "results of netherlands drug legalization"

in regards to your questions about whether store bought can be undercut by the black market.. the answer is i'm sure it can. But if the store bout brand is priced accordingly to provide a solid profit margin for the growers / distributors, and to return a solid tax to the government it will make the sale of a "black" market version economically unviable. The cost's to do something illegal are always much higher, You have to hide everything you do, a large percentage of you profit goes out the door in bribes, and you will also loose a large percentage thru betrayal / police activity. Even our government should be able to effectively compete with drugs lords on weed pricing.

Could probably even bring a fair chunk of change to the locally grown farming community (they have suffered a lot in recent years and could sure use a boost)

The only real viable reason for caution in moving forward with wholesale legalization is the incredible amount of people and money who are currently in the "game" because the are "fighting" the war on drugs. We cannot afford as a country to have them unemployed, so they must be retrained and put to use building our nations infrastructure or something along those line. (not saying its going to happen.. just saying that it needs to)

Have no idea what's going on in colorado or other states that have legalized, am sure there are still legal issues being worked on due to Federal involvement. So realistically it's still far to early to see how that's going to roll out.