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Originally Posted by joepole
When is this country going to get its collective head out of its ass and do the smart thing: legalization? How can anyone still think that demand-side legislation has any effect on the drug trade other than ensuring criminals profit from it?
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When? Never. There is just too much money in keeping things the way they are. Put aside all the illegal money for sake of discussion. What about all the legal money going to lawyers and rehab centers? What about all the money going directly into police departments from forfeitures? If the average pot arrest costs the defendant an average of $5000 total, then the 10M arrests over the decades has generated $50 billion dollars. Nobody "in the trade" will allow such a revenue stream to just be cut off.
I'm not saying that I don't agree with you, but I'm just trying to offer a possible explanation. And that is, its "big business" and no industry goes down without a fight.