Sleeping Monkey: The HBO show, Boardwalk Empire, does a nice job of presenting the parallels between the foolish drug war and the equally foolish alcohol war that led to prohibition. Prohibition did nothing but empower criminal gangs (and criminal politicians) while making them rich beyond their dreams. Since the only producers of alcohol (in America) were criminals, they mixed it with everything from rubbing alcohol to detergents and Americans still bought it, at their own peril.

The War on Drugs is no different. It's done nothing but empower criminal organizations, criminal politicians, and put the American people in danger.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

You would be wrongly assuming that there was some mistake in criminalizing a substance to produce a revenue source. The criminals(Anslinger, Hearst, et.al.) that staked pot out as "theirs, not yours" did and got exactly what they wanted. Big cotton, not Big Hemp. Big Timber not Big Hemp. Funding for the Drug Czar. Funding for local police states. PROFIT from enforcement as a business plan. All wraped up in a phoney "think of the children and white wimmins".
The public is the forgetful, attention span challenged one here, as usual.

Vodka Zombie: AbbeySomeone: 5 mill does get attention.

And that's just in one city. Imagine it on a statewide or national level. You might be looking at upwards of twenty billion or more in new revenue nationwide.

I don't understand why it's not treated along the same lines as beer. There should be mass producers, safe distribution and sale, and accommodations for home growers and personal use. Prohibition is doing the exact opposite of what needs to be done, and the only people making money off it now is an increasingly privatized prison system. That money should be going to state and federal needs.

Prison systems should not be privatized, either. What a stupid, stupid thing to do. We've already seen judges bribed into sending more people to prison, including children. The investors of private prisons make more money with more prisoners - so we're incentivizing incarceration.

And as soon as the prison systems figure out a way to make a lot of money from the manufacture of goods, we'll reintroduce slavery. Yay capitalism!

Vodka Zombie: Prohibition is doing the exact opposite of what needs to be done, and the only people making money off it now is an increasingly privatized prison system.

Don't forget the politicians who support private prison
And big pharma
And the gangs/cartels
And the DEA/LEOs

The HBO show, Boardwalk Empire, does a nice job of presenting the parallels between the foolish drug war and the equally foolish alcohol war that led to prohibition. Prohibition did nothing but empower criminal gangs (and criminal politicians) while making them rich beyond their dreams. Since the only producers of alcohol (in America) were criminals, they mixed it with everything from rubbing alcohol to detergents and Americans still bought it, at their own peril.

The War on Drugs is no different. It's done nothing but empower criminal organizations, criminal politicians, and put the American people in danger.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

Plus, there's the savings that states can save on enforcement budgets.