Ending prohibition - a pinko plot!

Once again a short post at the Gazetteer has provoked me into writing a lengthy comment that has morphed into a full post. It seems like it was just last week that my inner conservative had to set RossK straight on the folly of funding scientific research instead of paying huge bonuses to bank executives and brokers. Now he's suggesting that taking all the profitability out of the drug trade might be a way to stem drug-fueled gang violence. Silly progressive, why does he hate capitalism and the American dream?

Dear RossK,

Are you suggesting legalization?

That's crazy!

Allow people who want to take an intoxicating substance that has been around for centuries without subjecting them to the dangers of robbery, inferior possibly even poisonous product, criminal violence and legal persecution and incarceration? Why would we do that?

During the golden era of prohibition, people made fortunes selling liquor in the United States. Once people realized they could go to a speakeasy instead of going blind drinking homemade bathtub gin, they went in droves. Such illegal hot spots thrived on gambling and prostitution (in for a penny, in for a pound) and stayed in business through a massive system of corruption and bribery. Empires were built and everyone made money! Real, unfettered capitalism thrived and entrepreneurs like Al Capone became rich and powerful. It was the American Dream in action!

And then Franklin D. Roosevelt a bunch of America-hating pinkos who hated freedom decided to punish success and ended prohibition, spoiling the whole thing.

Right now, just as during the good old days of prohibition, thanks to the strict laws against drugs in the United States, the drug trade is largely controlled by large, powerful, well-organized and heavily-armed groups who murder anyone who gets in their way and there is very little that law enforcement can do about it. It's that kind of ambition that has made America the superpower it is today!

Legalizing drugs would take money out of the pockets of hard-working dealers, smugglers, crack-house operators, gang-bangers, thugs and black-market gun-dealers and put it back into the hands of students, musicians, working people of all kinds and most especially desperate drug addicts who currently need to steal to support their addictions, thus creating jobs in law enforcement, security services, the prison industry and the legal profession. Why do you want to put hardworking narcs and lawyers in the poorhouse RossK?

Good conservatives know that its is important to get tough on crime. I suppose a beatnik like you thinks it would be "groovy" if we sent fewer people to jail, just because their crimes have no obvious victims. Well, I've got news for you, hophead, thanks to the sensible lock'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key drug and prison policies enacted in the last couple of decades, the United States has the highest rate of incarceration and the largest prison population in the world. That's right, the USA is NUMBER ONE!!!!1!

Don't you realize that legalization is racist? It's simple - five times as many whites use drugs as blacks, but the government, in its mercy sends far more blacks than whites to prison to get the help they need to stay away from drugs and crime. If we legalize drugs, how will society help all these poor young black men stay out of trouble? (Have a look here for more information)

Without being the source of desperately needed drugs, how will pimps control their prostitutes? By violence, that's how! Why do you want these poor fallen women to get beaten up RossK?　Don't you know it's hard out there for a pimp?

Furthermore,　legalization would give the oppressive forces of big government another source of tax revenue to squander on stupid things like drug rehab centers, schools and public health programs. And they would be able to stick their interfering fingers into controlling the strength and quality of drugs, taking all the mystery out of the market for buyers. What is the free market without some risk?

Being as how you're obviously some kind of drug addled hippie (who else would support legalizing drugs?) I bet you're in favour of the safe injection site in Vancouver that has taken heroin addicts off the streets where they belong and put them in a controlled environment where they won't die from overdoses or get AIDS from dirty needles. I mean honestly RossK, junkies are like cockroaches, they are the scum of the earth -- if they don't die from overdoses or AIDS, how the heckfire are we supposed to get rid of them? If an early death from drugs was good enough for jazz great Charlie Parker, it should be good enough for them.

And if we decriminalize addiction, won't that make it easier for junkies to get into rehab centers, thus taking up valuable space that could be used to incarcerate the children of wealthy families who have been thrown out of boarding school for smoking pot? Why do you hate successful people RossK? Don't you know that's class warfare? You who else was a big fan of class warfare? Mao!

So, there you have it: Legalization is a communist plot.