If anyone needs an argument about why marijuana should be legalized, this would be it.
The shifting economics of the marijuana trade have broad implications for Mexico’s war against the drug cartels, suggesting that market forces, as much as law enforcement, can extract a heavy price from criminal organizations that have used the spectacular profits generated by pot sales to fuel the violence and corruption that plague the Mexican state.
Anyone who says they believe in ‘free markets’ should be for the immediate repeal of the marijuana ban. The free market will eliminate the drug underworld because ultimately, it’s less competitive. Billions can be used in more productive ways. We will have a new green industry for America (and these are jobs Americans would do). And finally Hershey, Coke and Taco Bell would see huge increases in revenue. Win-Win-Win-Win.
Ending the War on Drugs itself would reduce state and federal expenses government expenses by $50 billion dollars a year, almost enough to bail out a bank. We have spent over a trillion dollars, if you count back to 1971, when this all began. With that money, we created an organized crime machine more diverse and powerful than the Mafia, which was also created by a prohibition.
The War on Drugs should really be called the ’50 Years War On Drugs’ or ‘The Industry Against Drugs We Can’t Make Money On’. Or maybe it’s really the War on Drugs because everybody involved in it are taking drugs; Oxycontin, Viccodin, Viagra, Ambien….zzzzzzz….
William F. Buckley, a thought leader in the U.S. conservative movement believed all drugs should be legal on both libertarian and fiscal grounds. Come on all you free marketeers and fiscal conservatives. We’re wasting time and money when we should just be wasted.
Dispatches From The Front 
One need not travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights or to Cuba for political prisoners. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to ongoing persecution of hippies, radicals, and non-whites under prosecution of the war on drugs. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance global credibility.
The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as life is flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. Behold, it’s all good. Canadian Marc Emery sold seeds that enable American farmers to outcompete cartels with superior local herb. He’s being extradited to prison, for doing what government can’t do, reduce U.S. demand for Mexican.
Only on the authority of a clause about interstate commerce does the CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) reincarnate Al Capone, endanger homeland security, and throw good money after bad. Administration fiscal policy burns tax dollars to root out the number-one cash crop in the land, instead of taxing sales. America rejected the plague of prohibition, but it mutated. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment. Father, forgive those who make it their business to know not what they do.
Nixon passed the CSA on the assurance that the Schafer Commission would justify criminalizing his enemies, but it didn’t. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA shut down research and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use, period. Drug juries don’t seat bleeding hearts.
The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership or an act of Congress to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. John Doe’s free exercise of religious liberty may include entheogen sacraments to mediate communion with his maker.
Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.
Common-law must hold that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers undersigned that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration.