>Well this is where I have some expert knowledge in this area that I dare say most here don't. I worked 10 years as a narcotics officer and did plenty of undercover work and 4 years as a trooper working wrecks. The WOD ( yes "War on Drugs" ) is a necessary evil. However it is being fought on the wrong front. If you do not want vermin in the house you have to keep a clean house and put up barriers to keep them out. You can kill every rat you see but they are always more.
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>At one time the state had the right idea, tax it. tax the supply side no the consumption side. It is just hard to tax suppliers that do not pay regular taxes or legally bank. We need to redirect most of the money involved and shut our borders. I don't mean illegal immigration, sadly that is part of it because that contributes to the influx of contraband. I mean that for every 100 cars that cross the border, 10 get searched and of those 10 maybe 3 have discoverable drugs. In our shipping ports there are thousand of containers a day coming off boats that never get searched. Not only do drugs come in but it is a great national security hole. If you come into this country you SHOULD BE SEARCHED, PERIOD. Granted that is a pipe dream unless we turn down immigration a bit an make foreign travelers ( and citizen coming home ) enter through bottlenecks where we can focus manpower. Stop giving millions/billions to countries who take the money and pretend to help us all the while gleaning benefits from the trade.
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>I spent part of my time on the border and it is a joke to watch people come over in droves and for us to expect that we can police that unrestricted flow. we would sit on hills and watch groups after groups come over and since there was only a handful of us we had to pick which group we wanted to take out. The big joke is that suppliers know that so they have decoy loads come over and use street folks to tip us so we stop them but in the interim while we do our 8 hours of paperwork they smuggle over the real load.
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>Yes I think the over zealous pursuit of the individual user is hapless. Yes I think seizing what little property they have is useless, especially since most is junk and the whopping $200 in their pocket won't due much to offset the cost of all the paper used in their incarceration. There needs to be programs to help people stay off drugs but the ones we have are money pits. We get no bang for our buck while we prop up a section of society and perpetuate the welfare class and proved useless jobs that have no intrinsic value baled on success ratios. we don;t need shows like COPS glorify the "jump out boys" ( police squads that perform the street level enforcement ) it is not glorious it is a crappy job that I hated when we were told to do it to appease community leaders. I would say over half of the boys in black need to go away and be redirected to major traffickers and border control. That said you need those street level people to get to pointed a the higher level folks ( catch -22 ).
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>For those of you that do not think marijuana is that bad need to do their homework. It is a starter drug. If nothing else was wrong with it, that is enough reason to ban it. Once someone starts using MJ the more likely they are to graduate to harder drugs ( studies show 80% more likely ). Then there are the real victims and I don't mean user, I couldn't care less about him. MJ is just as potent as alcohol and more so if the THC content is high as in hydroponic grown plants and other "good stuff". You think Spicoli and the likes need to be driving through a school zone?
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>The victim is businesses that lose man hours or have sub-par effort turned in at work. The victims are the grandparents whose progeny steal them blind to buy their fix. The family whose daughter was killed in a DUI because little Johnny checked a .08 on blood alcohol but nobody checked that little Johnny also smoke 3 fatties at the prom prior to the wreck so alcohol gets all the blame. Other victims include the babies born ( or aborted ) to addict parents or to parents that are not ready to have kids ( emotionally/financially ) but did because they got high/drunk and "hooked up". Maybe the other victims are the kids who were terrorized by gangs or shot in a drive-by. I worked strip bars for a short while and saw many a young girl abused at home or otherwise on her own turned out as a way to make her fix. Yeah no victims.
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>The other major way to fight it is catch the money going out. It is estimated that we only seize 8% of the money heading out of this country via courier. Stop these people leaving and perform spot searches going out and have the dogs available there too.
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>So please don't sing that out of tune mess about no victims. I don't care what you put in your body I just care how if affects me and mine and the stability and productivity of my country.
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>I could go on but my fingers are tired.

I haven't been keeping up with this thread due to epic drift, so if you're answered this already then I apologize.

How do you feel about nicotine and alcohol, and compared to MJ?