Visit any jail or state or federal prison. Obviously, a TON of these guys are in for drug offenses. A surprising number of dealers (particularly marijuana) did it part time, and held down regular jobs (e.g. contractor, painter etc) in their community. That means there's a HUGE amount of "dark economy" dollars that are created and spent in minority communities by the illegal drug trade. Moreover, suburban folks who otherwise wouldn't be seen in these communities are still spending their recreational drug cash there.
Legalization, however, is going to gentrify the drug trade. I've seen the folks who get the licenses: They are NOT from those communities. They're largely very white, very rich and very suburban.
These drug legalization schemes have totally failed to address the substantial negative impact it will have on minority communities.
Legalize all drugs now, let them have as much as they want.
ReplyDeleteMany decades ago, marijuana is how I paid my tuition! I survived.....quite well.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I read the state licensing guidelines, I knew that the State really only wanted the corporate players.
ReplyDeleteI wish we had more individually-owned businesses and fewer of these ungodly corporations who seem to be accountable to nobody except their stockholders.
Don't kid yourself, the same folks responsible for drugs being in this country and especially the ghetto won't change. Same folks
ReplyDeleteBefore shooting himself twice in the head, Gary Webb explained quite well in his book "Dark Alliance" who the suppliers were when it came to crack cocaine in the ghetto.
No reason to think other drugs don't make their way into the country the same way.
What a racist post. Wow.
ReplyDeleteAfter prohibition the same thing happened, all the big rich distilleries took over, the bath tub economy went bust.
ReplyDelete"Low level dealers, most of whom are minorities", should follow the historical example of prohibition and the mob. It's members had nothing to do but join law enforcement and politics where these types are a better fit anyway.
Here we are 85 years after the 21st amendment repealing prohibition and we have politicians running the government doing things that would make Al Capone blush.
Unless and until the Federal government legalizes marijuana the problem will be that only rich people will be able to afford to get into the business because banks and other financial institutions will not be willing to risk providing start-up capital to people trying to get into the business
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