http://cafehayek.com/2015/02/quotation-of-the-day-1277.html
Quotation of the Day…
by DON BOUDREAUX on FEBRUARY 28, 2015
in DINNER TABLE ECONOMICS, NANNY STATE, SEEN AND UNSEEN
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… is from page 16 of Jeffrey Miron’s excellent 2004 monograph, Drug War Crimes:
Under legalization, the incidence of accidental poisonings or overdoses would not be zero, just as it is not zero for currently legal goods such as alcohol. But the rate of such incidents would decline significantly, since consumers would know the potency of the drugs they consume and have far greater confidence that the drugs contained the desired ingredients rather than unknown contaminants.
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What is imho the biggest Unintended Consequence of the “(pseudo) War on (some) Drugs” is that “children” die.
Yeah, I know they are sort of “young adults”, but in so many ways they are like “children”.
They have been denied the “experiences of life” by our over-protective infantilization of their “life’s non-experiences”.
Think about what life was like for the American “youth” from the Dead Old White Guys to say 1980’s.
Life was tough. Hard work. Discipline — either self or externally imposed. Dirty work for any wages was valued.
Now think about since then — undereducated in Gooferment Skrules where feelings count more than results. Virtually unlimited food for just being there. Entertainment to the exclusion of any “earnings”.
So why are we surprised when they die of overdoses and “rat poison” in “kool illegal drugs”?
Ending the war on drug, just as when (Alcohol) Prohibition ended, makes what was “illegal and kool” not so much any more.
Going to buy your “drugs” at Walmart, Walgreens, or RiteAid does quite feel the same. It’s equivalent to in the 50’s going to a strange drug store where no one knew you to buy condoms. (Not that I ever had to do that.)
But think about “safety”. Do you think that your local Walmart pharmacy will give you “hot shots” or a drug cut with strychnine?
And imagine that it would come with a “health safety warning” that list where you can go for free help to get clean?
And, imaging that it will cost about as much as aspirin. You can have a “habit” and keep a job, just like the pre-drug war days.
Of course, it does bring about the unemployment question — drug lords, drug gangs, police, prison guards, politicians, and bureaucrats will all have to find new lines of work.
But what’s wrong with that?
Argh!
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