Meanwhile, back in the US, I have to show my ID, fill out a form, and get a lecture from a pharmacist when I want a 12-pack of Sudafed. And where do meth cooks get theirs? Why on the cheap from black market bulk shipments from China, of course.

Vectron 'm for the legalization of drugs but I don't know how we can afford it if the government must pay for the upkeep of drug addicts (welfare/food stamps/healthcare/social security). The safety net only works if people are trying to live productive lives.

I'll nibble at that:

Meth? Farking hippies knew the stuff was poison "Speed Kills", Benzedrine/Dexedrine can be misused (if one enjoys being locked in to performing stereotypic behaviors, i.e., chewing one's nails until bloody, cleaning the same spot on the counter endlessly) but doesn't produce the same `high' during the excitant phase. Sell the standard amphetamines OTC. The hourly slaves will be happy and the toothless cohort will shrink.

In 1999 the best estimate of the total number of deaths from all illegal drugs, in U.S., ~11000. Deaths from OTC/prescription NSAID's? ~10,000. Where's the outrage over the Aspirin?

Far cheaper to produce all of these items in the U.S. and sell at just above cost and plow the profits back into treatment for those who think they need it. Those adult citizens who haven't got the gumption to read the `trainwreck' section from the Vaults of Erowid, before scarfing down this, or that? Well, they exercised their constitutionally protected right to do with his/her body what they wanted.

Primary change required would be to impose mandatory minimum sentences on those citizens who sell to minors/interfere with the life/liberty of any fellow citizen while under the influence of a clinically significant dose of any substance (Valium/Booze/etc) - no exceptions.

What are we getting for our tax dollars at present? We are financing a subsidy program for producers/dealers (along with all the `ancillary services'). Drug suppression never seems to do more than harvest the inefficient/unlucky/stupid ~10% of the traffic (same as in `72 when war was declared). Cops/DEA are just price support subsidy tools - `gee, they busted my source, I can still get it, but it's going to cost you...'

/some will require treatment/some will die by their own hand/most everyone else will get to quit `paying' as much and, more importantly, not having to worry about taking a stray bullet or be no-knocked owing to the County Assessor's GIS version of the Platte book entering wrong info (right address/wrong name - `oops, sorry we shot, and killed as you were protecting your home from what you thought was a home invasion by meth heads, we were here to bust a meth lab - our bad...'

Mexican Drug Lords make a bundle selling meth,

Private prisons make a bundle taking in harmless drug offenders as inmates.

American billionaires make a bundle from using prison labor rather than hiring real employees.

Everybody wins.

Are you freaking kidding me? These are the resources the drug dealers have? Why are we combating this. Let Darwin rule.

They've just helped us create jobs in the service sector. Locking up junkies is big business. But let's make sure we privatize that so there is a financial incentive to continue to erode our civil rights. We can also mandate expensive psudoscientific treatment and make people pay their probation officers out the nose. More food for the machine...

I think the estimate that there are 180,000 gang members in Chicago surprised me more than anything else. IMO thats pretty close to "nuke it from orbit..." level.