Guatemalan Prez: Legalize Drugs

[RoyBatty]

[PoS]

[The Comrade]

[The Comrade]

[Sparse1]

[exploited]

Impossible. Drugs will never be legalized in our life time. The cartels won't have it, and they will kill to make sure they stay illegal. Also, the United States will seriously muck with any country who tries to legalize drugs... I highly doubt the economic benefits will offset being attacked by the largest economy in the world.

[PoS]

[The Comrade]

that's also what they dealt in before prohibition so it's not like they were new industries either. alcohol prohibition just provided a new opportunity.

[exploited]

Legalizing drugs will do alot to reduce black market drug sales, but they won't be eliminated entirely. In the United Kingdom, illegal sales of alcohol, cigarettes and diesel - all legal products - has resulted in the loss of 28.5 billion pounds in tax revenue. Obviously, that number should be multiplied by an unknown factor to guesstimate total sales within the UK.

I am guessing that cartels will invest heavily in creating new drugs, which may not be deemed safe by whatever regulatory board oversees the legal sale of drugs. The loss of revenue may hurt them in the short term, but they will adjust, as they always have.

[The Comrade]

the big problem with cartels is their size. same with the mafia. if you gut their revenue, even if they switch to another illegal source of income, they're going to drastically shrink.