Hey why don’t we change a few laws and eliminate a few huge government agencies, eliminate the government’s excuse to surveil everyone and the ability to persecute and jail millions of people at will, eliminate the incredibly profitable business of private prisons and eliminate the easy money streams which inevitably end up wetting the pockets of government officials on all levels.

This is a lot of power to give up.

The people whose jobs benefit from prohibition have a lot of say in this matter and they don’t look eager to unemploy themselves.

I think ending the war needs to come with viable solutions for them.

We can see that cannabis prohibition is slowly ending. I’m curious how will the prohibition industrial complex adjust.

Remember how the DEA keeps testifying about cannabis totally deserving a schedule 1 status? (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.entrepreneur.com/amphtml/31...)

They’re basically answering the question “do you want to stay employed?”

And the answer is “yes, absolutely, without a doubt.”

Similarly, we can’t go to Saudi Arabia/Canada/Russia/Us etc. and say “Hey, let’s stop extracting oil. It’s not good for the environment. Yes, it’s free money for you, but we want you to stop.”

Except that hopefully oil is getting less profitable. Drug prohibition will always be.

The Opioid/Opiate epidemic is the direct result of highly available, high quality, legal opioids. For the majority of places (i.e. anywhere that isn't a a top 10 city or former, now desitute, trade capital with a port like Baltimore) currently in the grasp of this crisis, it all began with the introduction of pharma-industry darlings like oxycontin and other branded opioids.

Not only were opioids massively overprescribed for otherwise legitimate purposes, once hooked, anyone could walk into one of several "Pain Clinics" located within a few miles of any population center and get a scrip for a pharma quality fix covered almost entirely by their insurance. Even without insurance, the scrip for a 3 month supply of Lortab I received after an emergency appendectomy was just $100 back in 2009 (thanks to manifacturer rebates!). That's a week's fix for any burgeoning pill junkie willing to do cold water extraction (to remove the acetaminophen) and all for a relative pittance.

Allowing mass quantities of high quality opioids onto the market is what caused this issue in the first place. Removing even more barriers to access isn't going to make things any better. In fact, it's guaranteed to make things worse based on the results so far.

That's exactly what they did in Portugal and the results have been nothing short of amazing.

Have you ever thought about writing headlines for Buzzfeed?

Edit: I meant that as a compliment.