Dear reader,
It seems to me that legalizing marijuana would dramatically lower the use of harder drugs. When a user of marijuana goes to a “dealer” to buy “weed”, the dealer, if he sells other harder and higher profit margin drugs, is motivated to try to move the marijuana smoker to them. Simple economics. Perhaps to some dealers marijuana is a loss leader. In that it brings in other customers that could be interested in drugs with more markup…
Another important affect of legalizing marijuana would be to keep it out of our schools. If marijuana is sold in liquor stores or other controlled environments access to minors would be severely curtailed. With a legal market, users of marijuana would use the legal outlet and forgo the illegal one. Who wants to skulk around and pay a premium if you don’t have to. The incentives would be to take the easier and cheaper path. So with the illegal market gone minors would be reduced to standing near an outlet and trying to persuade some immature adult to buy it for them…
With marijuana taken from the schools the educational environment would be enhanced. Kids wouldn’t have nearly the access to marijuana to sell in the corridors of our schools. The access would be choked off. If now and then some barbarous adult buys some small amount it wouldn’t be enough to distribute. Think of when you were in school, did anyone sell liquor in the halls?
The government could milk the tax cow of marijuana like it does the lottery and cigarettes. The government gives worse odds than the mob did. The government takes some back, the mob didn’t. and the government doles it out in payments, the mob gave it cash. Yet we are told we are better off… the money is going to the children… More likely than not, it is going to the general budget. Or at least offsetting funds…
To be a stepping stone drug a substance must be illegal. The path that the step takes the potential traveler is to an illegal drug. Therefore the step must be illegal. How can a potential corrupter say “it is just like weed, it just lasts longer, makes you laugh, etc…, and weed it is illegal too.“ The logic falls apart if marijuana were legalized. So if marijuana is legal it is no longer a stepping stone drug.
Remove the stepping stone and people will have a much harder time stepping up to illegal drugs. People are open eyed. If they don’t immediately see a negative effect of drug usage they will be more inclined to use them. Especially kids. Remove the ready access to marijuana and kids will have a clearer understanding of the consequences of harder drugs (with proper education). Make the first step as hard as possible…
With less people in close access to harder drugs the usage of them would naturally go down. Public education about the negative effects of hard drugs would build back some societal myth against them. After some time the scourge of drugs and the crime it spawns can be pushed back… as long as our leaders don‘t lead us back there…
