Legalizing Drugs: It Might End The War In Afghanistan & Reduce Prison Overcrowding

Towards the end of last year, Gordon Brown and Barack Obama were uttering the idea of having a timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, but I believe it to be a ploy rather for real. The reason I believe it to be a ploy is that the situation of perpetual war, with the Taliban not being able to defeat NATO outright and NATO not being able to defeating the Taliban outright, is the way the Military Industrial Complex wants it. It’s good for profit.

It occurred to me long ago that if the Establishment wanted to truly defeat the Taliban and end the war in Afghanistan, they’d legalize opium. Doing so would wreck one of the Taliban insurgency’s major sources of income.

Currently NATO governments have ordered troops to go around Afghanistan burning opium crops. It’s these crops which are the only source of income for Afghan farmers, being as Afghanistan is somewhat of a inhospitable place and opium is a resilient crop. Anytime NATO troops go about burning some peasant farmer’s opium crop, they’re destroying many a farmer’s major, if not only, source of income and as a consequence have driven many farmers to join the Taliban. In return for protection of their crop, the Taliban gets a percentage of that farmer’s income which the Taliban will of course use to fund the fight against NATO.

Because opium and heroin are illegal, the market price is inflated. That’s something the likes of Taliban will profit from. If heroin were legalized, the price would drop and the Taliban would be poorer. If I can work this kind of thing out, there must be plenty in the establishment able to do likewise. The fact that they haven’t legalized drugs suggests that they don’t want to defeat the Taliban.

The consequences of drug prohibition can also be felt closer to home with prison overcrowding. A significant and proportion of the prison population are there on drug convictions. I’ve long been mystified why it is that government throws people in prison for either ingesting plant material into their body or selling it so that others can do so.

There would also be an indirect decrease in the prison population. I don’t see drug gangs having turf wars over alcohol, but there were turf wars over alcohol when the United States government prohibited alcohol in the 1920s. Don’t we learn anything from history?  In particular, that when a market can’t openly and legitimately regulate itself, criminals will regulate it with violence.  Anybody who uses violence against another person for whatever reason (other then self defence) should face possible imprisonment. But if drugs were legalized, there would be less violence and therefore fewer people in prison.

We are always hearing stories about  the overstretched prison system. Legalizing drugs would help with that, and I reckon we’d see prisons closing. Oh dear… that wouldn’t be good for various interests who rely upon prisons for profit. Throwing folk behind bars is an industry in itself and until some politico grows some balls and speaks the truth, you’re going to get prison overcrowding and potheads rotting behind bars for not harming nobody.