Aren't we at least trying to do that already? Another one of the reasons
alcohol and tobacco will never be banned is the amount of money the 2
substances bring in to various governments. If marijuana brought in a similar
amount, it would be on sale at all convenience stores.

Charlie Self

Comon, Charlie. If pot and other "recreational drugs" were legalized, regulated
and taxed like booze the amount of tax dollars would be staggering. Just ask
all the "importers" and "retailers" willing to risk serious prision time and
death to keep our supply lines WIDE open in the US. They do it for the HUGE
amounts of money. Very little of that goes to the farmer or the processors.
Legalized with production competition, raw material costs, production costs and
packaging/marketing costs would be nominal - leaving enourmous amounts for
profits and taxes. If you then factor in the reduction in prision costs,
policing costs, court costs and add some funds for detox and treatment programs
and lord only knows how many votes could be bought. (of course you lose the
votes of prision guards, policemen, judges, criminal justice staffers, drug
"importers" and "retailers", and others with a vested interest in the "War
for...ooops ON Drugs").

As to the other poster whose solution to all social ills seems to be taxes,
what "illicit" product or activity that people want has ever been taxed out of
existence? Not tobacco, not drugs, not prostitution, not Big Macs. Methinks
this is just a way to shift the tax burden of all the social programs you want
onto "Other People". These types of taxes are also extremely regressive as
upper middle class and wealthy folks spend a far smaller percentage of their
income on tobacco & booze than poorer people. Hey sounds like that other
panacea for shifting taxes to "Other People" - Gambling.

Dave Hall