Ron Paul has some beautiful ideas that will never work—at least not as a packaged deal. While some of his goals as a presidential hopeful are unfeasible under any probable circumstance, a few aren’t bad, so long as he does not realize the latter ideas alongside the former. Okay. That was a mouthful. Let me explain. Let’s start with his proposal to legalize drugs.
According to one report on http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp, The U.S. federal government spent over $19 billion dollars in 2003 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $600 per second. Our government recently increased that budget by over a billion dollars. As most wars are, it’s a pointless war.
You cannot win a war on drugs any sooner than you could a war on terrorism. A person can grow illegal drugs from the ground. A person can manufacture illegal drugs by mixing legal chemicals found in aisle nine at Publix. A person can take “un-recommended doses” of legal drugs. A person can huff anything from spray paint to cow poop. Worse, by making something illegal, you only open the door for a black market, a door through which violent criminals will pour (see the prohibition of alcohol in this country from 1920 to 1933).
If someone wants to get high, she or he will. Adrenalin junkies leap out of perfectly good airplanes. I wouldn’t want my son (or daughter, whatever) to abuse cocaine. However, if he did decide to snort a little powder, I would prefer that he went across the street to Walgreens and buy his coke there, as oppose to going into a questionable neighborhood and buying who-knows-what from who-knows-whom. This is a safety issue that doesn’t begin and end with the neighborhood from which this imaginary son would purchase his coke. The safety issue extends even more so to the question of what’s inside his cocaine. Suggesting that the future distributors of legalized drugs like cocaine print nutrition facts, such as ingredients, on their labels sounds ridiculous, I know, but . . .
Perhaps you have heard some of the terrible “fillers” found in most illegal drugs. Only the most dedicated junkie would purchase a bag of coke with “cement powder,” “rat poison,” or “Ajax” appearing within the list of ingredients. You may have heard of Krocodile (spellings of this drug vary), the illegal, Russian substitute from heroin. If—and only if—you have a strong stomach, you might want to watch some of the online videos featuring what has become of the abusers of Krocodile. After only a few hits, the abusers’ skin and meat rot off their bones. The FDA would never approve this drug, but since Krocodile is illegal, the FDA has no voice in the matter.
If we legalize illegal drugs, we will create safer options for users—both in regards to where they buy their drugs and what’s inside their drugs. Fewer poisonous ingredients mean fewer people in the emergency room. Fewer people in the emergency room mean fewer hospital beds and dollars wasted (to say nothing of human life). So, it seems, Ron Paul’s proposal to legalize these drugs has merit. Right? Well, hang on, because when you include another one of Ron Paul’s beliefs, you subtract all the benefits of this one.
Ron Paul is a libertarian. He believes that the government shouldn’t regulate businesses. He believes that Americans can make informed decisions for themselves regarding what they wish to purchase and place inside their bodies. The trouble with this line of thought is that Americans can only make informed decisions because of government regulations. Do you believe that Pepsi would list its ingredients and nutrition facts if they didn’t have to? Years ago, they didn’t have to, and they didn’t do it. Prior to government intervention, tobacco companies didn’t put warning labels on their products; they hired doctors to go on the radio and tell my grandparents that cigarettes were healthy.
If you legalize drugs such as cocaine, but also remove the FDA, little changes. Yes, you could purchase your cocaine from Walgreens, and I suppose that is an improvement, but you won’t have a list of ingredients to consider before sticking a straw up your nose. The same issues arise where prostitution is concerned.
If we legalize prostitution, the government can regulate it. Our government can threaten to yank a prostitute’s licenses if she fails to get a weekly blood test. Again, this only works if the government regulates what it legalizes.
Illegal prostitution and drug trafficking lead to violent crimes. They lead to death and suffering. They cost billions to “fight.” They result in people going to prison and carrying with them from the rest of their lives a felon’s status. Let’s put drug dealers, gangs, and pimps out of business. Let’s legalize their trades, and therefore make their products safer to purchase and use. Remember: such legalization grows pointless if a governing body does not meanwhile regulate what it legalizes.
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