The United States has been targeting Mexican drug cartels over the last few days, using thousands of police in 19 states to try to stop the illegal drug trade.
At the same time, just a week ago, President Obama ordered the DEA to lay off marijuana dispensaries in states that have made medical marijuana legal.
What’s the story? Is the President talking out of both sides of his mouth regarding drugs? Andrew E. Mathis
I was raised by an economist, and while I didn’t pick up very much along the way, I did learn about supply and demand. Reducing the supply of a product normally causes a rise in price of that product. In the case of a product where demand is what is called inelastic, i.e., that isn’t likely to change.
Some drugs cause addiction, which means that their demand is extremely inelastic. This means that, when supply goes down, price will go up even more. Think about cigarettes: Smokers will pay anything a store charges to buy cigarettes. No matter what taxes or extra charges are added, cigarettes continue to sell. That’s because nicotine is highly addictive.
Cocaine and heroin are similarly addictive, and these are the principal drugs that are coming into the U.S. from Mexico. The problem, in case it isn’t clear, is that all the government achieves by law enforcement actions like this latest one is drive up the price of street drugs. That leads to greater crime, because addicts must then do more illegal things to obtain drugs.
Marijuana isn’t addictive — at least not physically. Most Americans have smoked marijuana at least once, and millions smoke it daily or weekly. Keeping it illegal while keeping far more dangerous drugs, such as tobacco and alcohol, legal makes no sense at all. So the President’s move in calling the DEA off of dispensaries is a good idea.
But that’s not what makes the DEA’s move against Mexican drug traffickers bad. What makes it bad is not only that it will prove ineffective, but that it sends a mixed message about how to solve the drug problem in this country. And we do have a drug problem.
Somewhere between radical legalization and sealing the borders and jailing everyone holding a nickel bag is a reasonable middle ground. While I’m a proponent for legalizing marijuana, I’m not a proponent of legalizing cocaine and heroin. That being said, I think it’s a waste of time throwing money into the DEA to stop the flow because of the economic realities in fighting a war on drugs in this fashion.
There’s an interesting comparison between two countries that can be instructive in how to deal with a drug problem. The Netherlands decriminalized marijuana decades ago. They subjected it to taxation and have used that money to fund drug education against hard drugs like heroin and cocaine.
Meanwhile, around the same time, the U.K. was undergoing an epidemic of heroin addiction. They had not legalized or decriminalized marijuana, thus depriving themselves of a major source of funding to prevent addiction in the first place. Heroin addiction was such a problem in the U.K. that, ultimately, addicts were encouraged to register with National Health and get their drugs daily to avoid their turning to crime.
The U.S. should handle the drug problem the way the Netherlands did. Marijuana is already the largest cash crop in the country; taxing it would be a enormous source of revenue to put into drug education. Yes, we need to stop cartels from engaging in violent crime, and the DEA or other law enforcement agencies must do this, but merely stopping the supply from coming into the country will never stop the problem.
Source : www.examiner.com
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My fear is that when legalization comes for MJ, the Mexicans will get an import tax break and those here in the US supplying legally will get screwed out of profit in an economy that they paid one hell of a price for. I dont want to hear that we convinced them to bow out of certain types of contraband, and go legit with marijuana.
They are brutal, they mean business, and they are already here! The demand is here. They already flood the market,they can lose big in a bust and still profit.
The size of this is phenomenal. Whats going on across the border would be enough to get martial law declared if the violence was on this side of the border.
None the less I support legalization for many reasons…but the profit made here should remain here for the most part.
Our current border laws and policy is a disaster and a joke. Eighteen years ago I worked for a private company that kept foreign illegal detainees supplied with candy, soda pop, and coffee. Cubans, Central and South Americans….mainland Chinese before Tianaman Sq. incident.
In many cases, those willing to pay were brought north in hopes of crossing the southwestern desert undetected. I wish I could tell you this was a couple hundred folks but it was thousands over the five years. I entered this facility three days a week and I worked every Thanksgiving making sure the bins were full and coins dropping in the bucket.
The point is, the number of detainees over time always went up. Three times as many folks from Mexico were rounded up and simply taken straight back to the bridge and dropped off by the Border Patrol. To many to house.
I have nothing against the Mexican people, rich culture and loving family oriented people that they are. Problem is, we cant take all of them in, much less the rest of the world. Their desperation must be fixed AT HOME! I would love to come visit more often!
Obama is a politician, and as such, tends to talk out of both sides of his mouth simultaneously. He is the President, but if he doesn’t specifically tell the DEA to lay off medical marijuana states, they’ll keep pulling their bullshit raids. I’ve been rather disappointed with Obama in many respects since his being elected. I wish his campaign rhetoric started to match his actions. Dude needs to lay off the legal medical marijuana sellers and users. He has to make it crystal clear to the DEA and other Federal law enforcement types that States have rights, and that they should be allowed to exercise those rights. I’ve been smoking weed for over 40 years. If that’s not proof that is doesn’t kill you I don’t know what is. Chronic health problems make it much more of a priority now than before. I NEED my doobage to get through the day now. Please don’t take that away.