PeakTrader.com

[administrator]

Chart:

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/10/chart-of-the-day-americas-longest-war/13v152-2/

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PeakTrader:

Despite enormous propaganda by the pro-legalization crowd, the U.S. has been winning the War on Drugs by preventing millions of drug users, reducing drug use rates, and saving trillions of dollars in social costs:

U.S. Illegal Drug Use Down Substantially from 1970s
17 April 2012

“Drug use in the United States “has dropped substantially over the past thirty years,” thanks to local, state and federal government efforts, as well as international cooperation.

“The rate of Americans using illicit drugs today is roughly one-third the rate it was in the late ’70s.

More recently, there has been a 40 percent drop in current cocaine use and meth use has dropped by half.””

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We’ve seen how decriminalization of marijuana led to a sharp increase in marijuana use, although many remain in denial:

Examining the Impact of Marijuana Legalization on Marijuana Consumption
Insights from the Economics Literature

“From this review it is clear that total consumption will rise in response to legalization due to increases in the number of new users, increases in the number of regular and heavy users, and probable increases in the duration in which marijuana is consumed for average users.”

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Gateway Drug

“The Journal of the American Medical Association reported, based on a study of 300 sets of twins, that marijuana-using twins were four times more likely than their siblings to use cocaine and crack cocaine, and five times more likely to use hallucinogens such as LSD.”

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Spending $20 billion a year, for example, to prevent and reduce $300 billion a year in social costs, which include lost productivity, traffic & work injuries & fatalities, health problems & drug treatment, mental illness, unemployment, crime, domestic violence, child abuse, and other social services, means we’re not spending enough on the War on Drugs, e.g. rehabilitation.

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PeakTrader:

US crime rate at lowest point in decades.
January 9, 2012

The last time the crime rate for serious crime – murder, rape, robbery, assault – fell to these levels, gasoline cost 29 cents a gallon and the average income for a working American was $5,807. That was 1963.

In the past 20 years, for instance, the murder rate in the United States has dropped by almost half…Meanwhile, robberies were down 10 percent in 2010 from the year before and 8 percent in 2009.

The declines are not just a blip, say criminologists. Rather, they are the result of a host of changes that have fundamentally reversed the high-crime trends of the 1980s.

James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston. “We are indeed a safer nation than 20 years ago.”

He and others give four main reasons for the decline:

*Increased incarceration, including longer sentences, that keeps more criminals off the streets.

*Improved law enforcement strategies, including advances in computer analysis and innovative technology.

*The waning of the crack cocaine epidemic that soared from 1984 to 1990, which made cocaine cheaply available in cities across the US.

*The graying of America characterized by the fastest-growing segment of the US population – baby boomers – passing the age of 50.

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I suspect, without the War on Drugs, addiction rates for drugs would be similar to alcohol by now (i.e. roughly interchanging the lines on the graph):

22 million Americans are addicts
September 6, 2003

“Around 22 million Americans were addicted to alcohol or drugs last year.

The most common addiction — with 14.9 million people — was alcohol. Another 3.9 million people were addicted to illegal drugs and the remainder were addicted to both drugs and alcohol, SAMHSA said in its new National Survey on Drug Use and Health.”

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Buying illegal drugs when you know you’re making criminals rich and killing innocent people is worse than being addicted.

I guess, that’s what drugs do to people.

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The steepest increase in drug war spending was in the crack cocaine epidemic, that soared from 1984-90, which suggests government will spend as much as necessary to contain drug use.

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When the Fed tightens and eases the money supply to smooth-out business cycles, you don’t see a correlation either. So, you believe monetary policy has been a failure?

Obviously, your arguments are political, not economic, like some others, who make the same biased statements regardless of how much proof you show them and answer their same questions in many ways many times.

Why defend illegal drug users, who invent propaganda, blame others for their irresponsibilities, and cost society lots of money?

Why reward people who break the law with legalization?

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Morganovich:

In 1986, the US Defense Department funded a two-year study by the RAND Corporation, which found that the use of the armed forces to interdict drugs coming into the United States would have little or no effect on cocaine traffic and might, in fact, raise the profits of cocaine cartels and manufacturers. The 175-page study, “Sealing the Borders: The Effects of Increased Military Participation in Drug Interdiction,” was prepared by seven researchers, mathematicians and economists at the National Defense Research Institute, a branch of the RAND, and was released in 1988. The study noted that seven prior studies in the past nine years, including one by the Center for Naval Research and the Office of Technology Assessment, had come to similar conclusions. Interdiction efforts, using current armed forces resources, would have almost no effect on cocaine importation into the United States, the report concluded.[113]

During the early-to-mid-1990s, the Clinton administration ordered and funded a major cocaine policy study, again by RAND. The Rand Drug Policy Research Center study concluded that $3 billion should be switched from federal and local law enforcement to treatment. The report said that treatment is the cheapest way to cut drug use, stating that drug treatment is twenty-three times more effective than the supply-side “war on drugs”.[114]

The National Research Council Committee on Data and Research for Policy on Illegal Drugs published its findings on the efficacy of the drug war. The NRC Committee found that existing studies on efforts to address drug usage and smuggling, from U.S. military operations to eradicate coca fields in Colombia, to domestic drug treatment centers, have all been inconclusive, if the programs have been evaluated at all: “The existing drug-use monitoring systems are strikingly inadequate to support the full range of policy decisions that the nation must make…. It is unconscionable for this country to continue to carry out a public policy of this magnitude and cost without any way of knowing whether and to what extent it is having the desired effect.”[115] The study, though not ignored by the press, was ignored by top-level policymakers, leading Committee Chair Charles Manski to conclude, as one observer notes, that “the drug war has no interest in its own results.”[116]

During alcohol prohibition, the period from 1920 to 1933, alcohol use initially fell but began to increase as early as 1922. It has been extrapolated that even if prohibition had not been repealed in 1933, alcohol consumption would have quickly surpassed pre-prohibition levels .[117] One argument against the War on Drugs is that it uses similar measures as Prohibition and is no more effective.

Alberto Fujimori, president of Peru from 1990–2000, described U.S. foreign drug policy as “failed” on grounds that “for 10 years, there has been a considerable sum invested by the Peruvian government and another sum on the part of the American government, and this has not led to a reduction in the supply of coca leaf offered for sale. Rather, in the 10 years from 1980 to 1990, it grew 10-fold.”[122]

At least 500 economists, including Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman,[123] George Akerlof and Vernon L. Smith, have noted that reducing the supply of marijuana without reducing the demand causes the price, and hence the profits of marijuana sellers, to go up, according to the laws of supply and demand.[124] The increased profits encourage the producers to produce more drugs despite the risks, providing a theoretical explanation for why attacks on drug supply have failed to have any lasting effect. The aforementioned economists published an open letter to President George W. Bush stating “We urge…the country to commence an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition… At a minimum, this debate will force advocates of current policy to show that prohibition has benefits sufficient to justify the cost to taxpayers, foregone tax revenues and numerous ancillary consequences that result from marijuana prohibition.”

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/10/chart-of-the-day-americas-longest-war/#comments

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PeakTrader:

Morganovich, it’s dishonest to ignore the data, you’ve been shown many times, and make the same ridiculous statements.

I’d like the liberty to drive as fast as I want. However, there are consequences.

And the consequences of drug abuse is many times greater than obesity.

Social costs include lost productivity, traffic & work accidents, health problems & drug treatment, mental illness, unemployment, crime, domestic violence, child abuse, and other social services.

Here’s one piece of the puzzle:

The Economics of Drug Legalization

“Proponents of legalization suggest that their policy will save society money…First, we will not have to pay police to enforce the present criminal-justice approach to drug usage. Second, we will be able to tax legal drugs, thereby raising revenue.

The FY 1994 federal budget allocates $7.51 billion for drug control (supply reduction) which includes criminal justice, interdiction, international programs and intelligence. State and local governments spend even more, $12.6 billion a year.

The total revenue collected from alcohol taxes at the federal, state, and local levels amounts to about $13.1 billion a year, a paltry sum compared to the social costs associated with alcohol consumption.

Treating drug addicts is enormously expensive. Take crack babies as an example. In 1988, it cost $2.5 billion for the intensive care needed to keep the babies alive after birth.

But that was just the beginning of the expenses. It is estimated that it will cost $15 billion to prepare these children for kindergarten, and will then cost between $6 billion and $12 billion for every year of special learning programs.

Even assuming the low-ball figure, the social costs of educating all of the crack babies born in 1988 – not all crack babies, mind you, just those born that year – will run approximately $90 billion by the time they graduate from high school.

Already, drug addicts cost the country roughly $33 billion dollars a year in lost productivity and job-related accidents, according to a study conducted in 1987 by the Research Triangle Institute of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

If legalized, addiction rates would increase and the cost would rise to between $140 billion and $210 billion a year. And who will pay for lost productivity and job-related accidents? Consumers will, of course, in the final costs of the produced goods.

We spend approximately $20 billion a year on drug control activities. If drugs were legalized, we would see an increase in addiction rates.

Consequently we would have more crack babies (the kind that already will cost the system $90 billion), decreased productivity (at a cost of between $140 billion and $210 billion), more job-related accidents, and more dead people.

And given the potential black market effect, it is unlikely that we could raise even several billion dollars in tax revenue.

From a purely economic standpoint, legalization is not cost effective.”

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Morganovich, you should know better than the crackpot Libertarian, by now, because you’ve been shown extensive data.

Spending $1 to prevent and reduce much more than $1 in social costs is a good policy.

Also, you don’t have the liberty to pollute unabated. It’s worse with drugs, because people become addicted and don’t care.

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Mark J. Perry:

We can document those same costs for alcohol, which were $223 billion in 2006 for lost productivity, healthcare costs, criminal justice costs, crime, drinking during pregnancy (thousands of fetal alcohol syndrome babies), drunk driving accidents/deaths, etc.

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PeakTrader:

Morganovich, you have it all backwards and upside down. Even Dr Perry contradicts your ridiculous assumptions with some of the huge social costs of (legal) alcohol.

I’ve shown you data that suggest Prohibition reduced alcohol consumption 30% to 50%, along with data that decriminalization of marijuana increased use substantially.

You don’t even understand legalization or decriminalization will lead to much more social costs. I’ve answered your questions many times before, no matter how ridiculous they were (and still are).

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/10/libertarian-candidate-gary-johnson-wants-to-end-americas-war-on-weed/#comments

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PeakTrader:

Damage could be avoided if “Peaceful Americans Who Use Intoxicants Not Currently Approved by the US Government” obey the law.

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Controlled Substances Act of 1970

Passed U.S. House 392-16
Passed U.S. Senate 97-2

Every President since Nixon supported it:

“The next two presidents, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, responded with programs that were essentially a continuation of their predecessors… Bush maintained the hard line drawn by his predecessor and former boss…The next three presidents – Clinton, Bush and Obama – continued this trend, maintaining the War on Drugs.”

U.S. Supreme Court – Gonzales v. Raich

“The starting point for the Court’s opinion was the fact that it was conceded that Congress had the power to control or ban marijuana for non-medical uses:

Respondents in this case do not dispute that passage of the CSA (Controlled Substances Act), as part of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, was well within Congress’ commerce power. Nor do they contend that any provision or section of the CSA amounts to an unconstitutional exercise of congressional authority.”

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/10/drug-enforcement-related-deaths-for-2012-reach-50-this-week-and-12-year-girl-was-burned-during-drug-raid-on-wrong-house/#comments

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PeakTrader:

Jon, I started from an unbiased position and learned from actual data that drug decriminalization and legalization cause even worse problems.

I’ve shown you a mountain of data from credible sources. Yet, you remain in denial.

You’re living in a dreamworld. Replacing something bad with something worse is not a solution.

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Morganovich, I’ve answered your question many times in many ways. Obviously, they weren’t the answers you wanted. I’ll try to make it simple for you:

Say you drink a six-pack, a fifth of gin, or smoked a pound of marijuana, etc., while watching Monday Night Football on your private property. Then, at halftime, there’s an emergency and you decide you need to drive your car. Using your poor judgment, you end up killing someone other than yourself. You can be arrested.

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Your last three drug promotions were a libertarian, a journalist, and an ex-prosecutor.

Who’s next? Richard Pryor?

Although, this isn’t the best methodology, here are three who support the War on Drugs:

Drug Legalization: Why It Wouldn’t Work in the United States
By Edmund Hartnett, Deputy Chief and Executive Officer, Narcotics Division, New York City Police Department, New York
March 2005

“Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch described drug legalization as “the equivalent of extinguishing a fire with napalm.”

Joseph Califano, the author and a member of President Johnson’s cabinet, stated: “Drugs like marijuana and cocaine are not dangerous because they are illegal; they are illegal because they are dangerous.”

William J. Bennett, former director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy…”legalized alcohol, which is responsible for some 100,000 deaths a year, is hardly the model for drug policy.”"

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Methinks says: “How many deaths was illegal alcohol responsible for (normalized for population size)?”

A lot fewer than you “think.”

Prohibition

“Prohibited the commercial manufacture and distribution of alcoholic beverages; it did not prohibit use, nor production for one’s own consumption. Moreover, the provisions did not take effect until a year after passage -plenty of time for people to stockpile supplies.

Alcohol consumption declined dramatically during Prohibition. Cirrhosis death rates for men were 29.5 per 100,000 in 1911 and 10.7 in 1929. Admissions to state mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis declined from 10.1 per 100,000 in 1919 to 4.7 in 1928.

Arrests for public drunkennness and disorderly conduct declined 50 percent between 1916 and 1922. For the population as a whole, the best estimates are that consumption of alcohol declined by 30 percent to 50 percent.

Violent crime did not increase dramatically during Prohibition. Homicide rates rose dramatically from 1900 to 1910 but remained roughly constant during Prohibition’s 14 year rule. Organized crime may have become more visible and lurid during Prohibition, but it existed before and after.”

And don’t criticize logic, until you learn some.

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MP says: “We punish, criminalize, poison, rob and murder drug users to save them from the harmful effects of using intoxicating drugs. How does that make sense?"

It’s not about them, it’s about others. The same can be said about polluters.

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Brotio says: "No, it’s about THEM. If someone on drugs commits a crime, prosecute them for the crime."

Without social costs, who would care?

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/10/video-randy-barnett-on-the-harms-of-drug-prohibition/#comments

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PeakTrader:

Romney says it better than I can:

What Would President Mitt Romney’s Drug Policy Look Like?
Mar 2 2012

“In his book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, Romney attributes the legalization effort to the “passion and zeal of the members of the pleasure-seeking generation that never grew up … their arguments are elaborate but empty — a great nation has never been built on hedonism.”"

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/10/us-drug-law-enforcement-deaths-for-2012-reach-51/#comments

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PeakTrader:

“87.5% (1.34 million) were for possession.”

Does that include possession of a ton?

A Romney win means a crackdown (no pun intended) on drugs.

You’ll have a better chance with a Obama win, and you’ll need lots of drugs in the second term.

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It’s easy to twist facts around.

For example, some people assume when drug arrests rise and other crime arrests fall, that means more resources are being directed to fight drugs and fewer to fight other crimes.

However, it could mean more drug arrests reduces other crimes.

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Methinks, you should be praising government for reducing property crime substantially.

And, you have a much greater chance of being killed by a drug user, in this permissive environment, than the DEA.

David Olds, I agree, people shouldn’t vote based on “ignorant, close-minded and irrational” emotional outbursts.

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/10/new-fbi-data-reveal-that-the-war-on-weeds-has-failed/#comments

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PeakTrader:

Chuck, I’ll answer your question and also Morganovich and Jon, who both have their head in the sand or worse, simultaneously.

There’s a long history of criminal activity on the property, while the community has been tolerant.

You should be angry at the motel owner. His extreme disregard, over two decades, may ruin it for other slum lords.

I agree, this case should’ve never went to court. A slum lord should know his limitations, to paraphrase Clint Eastwood.

Thanks for your cooperation.

******

Reviews of Motel Caswell, Tewksbury, MA

Hookers, Drug Addicts, Drug Dealers Need I Say More?!. Dirty, Disgusting & Old! Do Not Stay Here!!!!!

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First of all Nothing was clean, there were no towells, no soap, the shower not only was shooting out in ever direction but the water was brown Yes, BROWN!!!! This place should be shut down it even has spider webs up to ying yang and little roaches and crackheads surround the whole place I would never ever recommend this motel…

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Stayed on a quiet night. No remote to the TV, which was stuck tinted green. No alarm clock, no internet, several holes in walls, decaying furniture. A solid reputation for drug and prostitution activity with regular police patrols. It was, however, really cheap.

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Lots of bug bites overnight. All rooms are placarded non-smoking, but are supplied with ashtrays, so they’re heavy with fresh smoke smell anyway. Walls are probably only as thick as the paneling you see, you can hear very well next door. Local police are often milling about, running checks on cars in the lot.

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This hotel absolutely sucks seriously!!!! Over $1000 a month for one room and one bed, the shower doesn’t work properly, the bathroom light hates to come on and there was cigarette burns all over the sheets and blankets (thank god we had our own)…

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At least, it sends a message to other motels in the community: There’s a limit to being a slum lord.

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/10/institute-for-justice-fights-to-prevent-the-government-from-taking-an-innocent-elderly-couples-mom-and-pop-motel/#comments

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PeakTrader:

“Respected Mexican think tank: US legalization of weeds in Colorado, Oregon and Washington could cut Mexican drug cartel earnings by as much as 30%.”

The study has more holes than Swiss cheese.

Perhaps, 5% of drug users consume 30% of drugs, including marijuana. To effectively reduce drug cartel profits, put the 5% in rehabilitation programs.

For example:

“The Japanese in 1954…inaugurated a system of forced hospitalization for chronic drug users. Under this policy, drug users were rounded up in droves, forced to go through cold-turkey withdrawal and placed in work camps for periods ranging from a few months to several years.

This approach to drug users, still in force today, is seen by the Japanese as a humane policy focussed primarily on rehabilitation. By American standards, however, these rehabilitation programs would be seen as very tough.

The Japanese from the very beginning have opted for a cold-turkey drug withdrawal. Thus, every heroin addict identified in Japan is required to enter a hospital or treatment facility, where they go immediately through withdrawal.

Conviction through the criminal justice system is not necessary for commitment. Any addict identified, either through examination by physicians or through urine testing, is committed through an administrative process.

As a result courts are not burdened with heavy caseloads of drug users, drug users are not saddled with criminal records and punishment for drug users is swift and sure.

These policies dramatically and rapidly cut drug use. Within four years of the 1954 amendments, the number of people arrested for violating the Stimulant Control Law dropped from 55,654 to only 271 in 1958.

Japan began experiencing serious problems with heroin. By 1961 it is estimated that there were over 40,000 heroin addicts in Japan…tougher penalties against importation and selling, and by imposing a mandatory rehabilitation regime for addicts.

The results of Japan’s tough heroin program mirrored those of its successful fight against stimulants. The number of arrests for heroin sale and possession fell from a high in 1962 of 2,139 to only 33 in 1966 and have never risen above 100 since.”

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As Obama’s Affordable Care Act moves the U.S. towards a European-style health care system, keeping patients high may be the most affordable way to go.

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And, if you feel threatened by U.S. law enforcement, you can always move to Sweden:

Sweden’s unsolved violent crime rate at 95 percent
15 November 2008

“Robberies and violent crimes made up 75 percent of all reported crimes in Sweden last year, which added up to around 900,000. Police managed to solve 5.8 percent of them.

Bengt Svenson, the national police chief, defended his department saying: “There is often very little of value to work with. When it comes to theft, there are no witnesses, and victims often don’t know when the crime occurred. There’s really not much to go on and that obviously makes it hard to solve crimes.”

Justice Minister Beatrice Ask feels the figures are an unwelcome truth for a government that ran on a platform on crime reduction. When elected, the government promised to have 20,000 police on Sweden’s streets by 2010.

Ask feels that part of the problem lies with Sweden’s culture. “I think it has to do with the culture, the idea that there is simply nothing that can be done.” At any rate, Ask says she feels the statistics are rather disturbing and that the Swedish police could do more to clear up these cases.”

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/11/thursday-night-link/#comments

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/11/compared-to-israels-progressive-views-on-medical-marijuana-america-remains-in-the-dark-ages/#comments

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PeakTrader:

Those states may tax marijuana and give that money to public schools, which they’ll need for the students high on drugs.

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What’s to stop people, or a society, from using something that grows like a weed?

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/11/quotation-of-the-day-on-the-unprecedented-change-that-took-place-yesterday-at-the-polls/#comments

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Why Obama Won
November 9, 2012

On election night, as the camera panned the audience waiting to hear Barack Obama give his victory speech, what struck me was that the audience was primarily young people and minorities. My thought was, "These are the very people who will suffer the most under a second Obama administration. Don't they know they are voting against their own best interest?"

And then I thought about it and came to the conclusion: "No. They don't." They don't because they are, by and large, uneducated. Oh, some of them may have college degrees or even graduate degrees, but they are still substantially uneducated. I would bet that very few of them know the difference between Keynesian economics and Austrian School economics. I am sure that most of them have never heard of the Laffer Curve. I would guess that most of them aren't familiar with the first principles behind the origin of our country. I doubt that many of them know what evil lies in Socialism or Communism, or unbridled leftism. Or are even aware that Barack Obama is a man of the left, and what that means. They, for the most part, have no idea what the concept of individual liberty is, nor how a big, powerful central government reduces that liberty. I also am pretty sure that they feel that Barack Obama is someone who cares about the poor, women, minorities, and the "middle class," and that Republicans don't. I would stake my substance on the fact that they don't know what is meant by a limited government, or what the Tenth Amendment says. I am certain that most of them don't know anything about Benghazi. Substantially uneducated!

How is it that we have raised one or two generations of uneducated Americans? The answer, my friend, is not blowing in the wind. The answer lies in the curricula of our schools.

For the past several months, in my capacity in the Republican Party, I have been speaking at middle schools and high schools around Los Angeles. It has been very enlightening.

I love engaging with children. Most of them are very bright and ask brilliant questions. The questions give me insights into what they are most concerned about. It also makes clear what they are taught -- by either their parents or their teachers, or both.

To summarize -- children, for the most part, believe the following:

a) Republicans care about only the rich -- the top 1% -- and don't care about anyone else.

b) Republicans hate people of color and especially Latinos.

c) Republicans hate gays.

d) Republicans are racist.

e) It is the government that provides jobs. (I have asked that question many times in classrooms or assemblies. "Who is it that creates jobs in America?" The answer is invariably, without hesitation, "the government.")

f) Corporations are bad, and profits are very bad. Business shouldn't make profits; they should give any excess money they make to their employees.

g) Taxes are good; they provide the money for the government to take care of people.

h) Government should expand and take care of everyone in the country.

i) America, rather than being a force for good in the world, has been a force for evil.

j) Government has an unlimited source of funds. (When I ask, "Where is the government going to get the money to do all these things you want it to do?," the answer is "taxes.")

These children will soon be voters. How is it, in America, that we are raising children to believe that bigger government is better, that government is the engine that provides jobs, that profits are bad, that Republicans care about only the rich, that we are racist, and that we hate minorities and gays.

This is not something to be ignored. Our country is being changed forever by children who have had this type of indoctrination. We must figure out how to stop it. We need to create a love of country in our children as we once did. We need to have our children say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag every morning, as we once did. We need to teach our children that America has been a force for good in the world. We need to teach them that it is not the role of government to "take care" of people. We need to teach civics once again, and the Constitution.

Until this problem is dealt with, and it needs to be soon, we will be raising generations of children who believe in an ever-larger government and who will permanently change America into Greece. There will be no Republican Party or conservative candidates who will win elections as more and more of the population is indoctrinated with leftist thinking. Goodbye to the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free if we don't act on this issue.

Gary Aminoff is the vice chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County. He can be reached at gaminoff@gmail.com.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/why_obama_won.html

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PeakTrader:

So, now, illegal drug pushers and users are moral.

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“The moral authority in American drug policy is being reclaimed bravely by the American people themselves…”

What a dopey statement.

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MP:

It seems like you think you have the moral authority to tell me I can’t smoke weeds growing in my back yard, no?

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PeakTrader:

We’ve seen how propaganda can shift public opinion.

It seems, more Americans have become “lost-in-the-forest,” e.g. through ignorance or specialization.

More Americans believe in drug legalization like they believe government is better than the free market (e.g. goods materialize for free rather than low prices).

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And, unlike government, the free market provides abundant goods for the masses at low prices, with little wasted resources, and creates, rather than destroys, capital.

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/11/moral-authority-in-us-drug-policy-is-being-reclaimed-by-the-american-people-and-message-is-echoing-around-the-world/#comments

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