[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

One quibble: the cartels don't want drugs "legal." They want weak enforcement of strong laws, which allows them to continue to claim that "getting the stuff to you is hazardous and really expensive" so they can charge more and more, but without the actual costs associated with that claim. Illegality is how they make their money, not the drugs themselves.

That would then be an argument to legalise and regulate.
I'm not sure I buy this logic though. They already control the plantations. If its legalised, the regulation would occur with regard to the refining process, the current cartels would become farmers selling a crop to US/western companies who would refine it and market it. All they have to do is collaborate with each other to keep the prices nice and high like OPEC.

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Unfortunately, legalizing/controlling/managing the current crop of illegal drugs would not work the way things stand now. First, the bureaucracy* needed to get a handle on all the illegal drug traffic in the US would be enormous and expensive. Second, the discussion of what should be controlled at what level would paralyze the process of setting up such a bureaucracy and all the rules that go with it.

See above.
The cartels could still choose to refine their own product which might be overly strong or dangerous or crap quality due to conditions but this would be like moonshine and who bothers to buy imported moonshine? Very few would buy this inferior/dangerous product if they could get good, safe stuff over the counter.

Originally Posted by ghporter 

And there is always the potential for some new and as yet unknown drug to pop up for exploitation, and either the bureaucracy would have to have overly broad control of what "might be," or it would be a year behind the trends and not satisfy the whole purpose of its existence.

Sure this is the case already? It is in the UK. Its difficult to ban what doesn't exist yet.

[Athens]

Why not hear it from the growers and dealers themselves.

The Union - The Business Behind Getting Highpart 1 - YouTube

The Union : The business behind getting high.

The drug cartels do NOT want drugs legal. It would ruin them. Laws designed to protect people from themselves are always doomed to fail. Laws to protect people from product requires product to be regulated to be subject to the rules. Illegal drugs are not regulated thus extremely dangerous and hard to control.

[Athens]

Pot brownies give B.C. office workers buzz - British Columbia - CBC News

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