Gun laws have rendered millions of citizens defenseless; and drug laws, as in the case of medical marijuana, have left thousands of cancer, AIDS, and glaucoma patients helpless without the medical benefits of their preferred treatment. The interference with the right of people to choose their own medicines and means of self-defense has been a tragic matter of life and death for all too many peaceful citizens.
The most fundamental argument against drug laws and gun laws is moral: people have a right to own themselves, defend themselves, possess property, and control their own bodies. In practice, when this right is thwarted, disaster ensues. Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle has endorsed Proposition 19 on the November ballot in California. The measure would legalize marijuana in California.
Hinkle urges Californians to vote for Proposition 19. The War on Drugs has created tremendous damage in California and throughout America, and this will help stop that damage. A vote for Prop 19 is a vote for justice and common sense. Passing Prop 19 will also help to reduce drug-trafficking violence at the Mexico border. Unfortunately, many Democratic and Republican politicians are probably in agreement with violent drug lords that marijuana prohibition should be maintained at all costs. Hinkle is a California resident.
Basil Venitis points out the drug war and gun control have led to huge black markets in drugs and guns. With millions of potential customers, people who enter the illegal businesses are people who are likely to take risks and perhaps break laws in other ways. Without the legal mechanisms of arbitration, disputes are often settled with violence. The more money spent on enforcement, the more lucrative and risky the business, and the more violence results. Economists have estimated that the drug war increases homicides by as much as 50 percent, and the Justice Department has estimated that 2 million crimes are stopped every year by private gun ownership. Few policies would cut down on crime more than ending the drug war and repealing gun laws.
After Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001, postdecriminalization usage rates have remained roughly the same or even decreased slightly when compared with other EU states, and drug-related pathologies -- such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage -- have decreased dramatically.
Drug prohibition does more to make citizens unsafe than any other factor. Just as alcohol prohibition gave us Al Capone and the mafia, drug prohibition has given us the Crips, the Bloods and drive-by shootings. Consider the historical evidence: America's murder rate rose nearly 70% during alcohol prohibition, but returned to its previous levels after prohibition ended. Now, since the War on Drugs began, murder rates have doubled. The cause-effect relationship is clear. Prohibition is putting innocent lives at risk.
What's more, drug prohibition also inflates the cost of drugs, leading users to steal to support their high priced habits. It is estimated that drug addicts commit 25% of all auto thefts, 40% of robberies and assaults, and 50% of burglaries and larcenies. Prohibition puts your property at risk. Finally, nearly one half of all police resources are devoted to stopping drug trafficking, instead of preventing violent crime. The bottom line? By ending drug prohibition venitists would double the resources available for crime prevention, and significantly reduce the number of violent criminals at work in your neighborhood.
The Libertarian Party has opposed the federal and state War on Drugs throughout its history. The Libertarian Party favors the repeal of all laws creating 'crimes' without victims, such as the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes. Venitis points out the war on drugs has cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives with no results. Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread. All the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven't made any difference. All the people involved in law enforcement, treatment, and prevention have been wasting their time, misguided by politicians.
Current drug policy od USA and Fourth Reich(EU) costs governments 100 billion euros each year to implement, while depriving their budgets of 150 billion euros in potential revenues from taxation of legal drug sales. The revenue figure was derived assuming roughly the same taxation rate currently used for alcohol and tobacco sales. Also factored in is the tax revenue on the income earned by producers,currently concealed in a shadowy black market, that would be subject to standard income and sales taxation.
Legalization will move the marijuana industry above ground, just as the repeal of alcohol prohibition restored the legal alcohol industry. A small component of the marijuana market might remain illicit, moonshine marijuana rather than moonshine whiskey, but if regulation and taxation are moderate, most producers and consumers will choose the legal sector, as they did with alcohol.
Legalization would therefore eliminate most of the violence and corruption that currently characterize marijuana markets. These occur because, in underground markets, participants cannot resolve disputes via non-violent mechanisms such as lawsuits, advertising, lobbying, or campaign contributions. Instead, producers and consumers in these markets use violence to resolve disputes with each other and bribery or violence to resolve disputes with law enforcement. These features of vice markets disappear when vice is legal, as abundant experience with alcohol, prostitution, and gambling all demonstrate.
Legalization would result in numerous other benefits. Medical marijuana patients would no longer suffer legal limbo or social stigma from using marijuana to treat nausea from chemotherapy, glaucoma, or other conditions. Infringements on civil liberties and racial profiling would decline, since victimless crimes are a key cause of such police behavior. Quality control would improve because sellers could advertise and establish reputations for a consistent product, allowing consumers to choose low or high-potency marijuana.
The Libertarian Party has 21 candidates for U.S. Senate and 169 candidates for U.S. House in the upcoming November 2010 elections. The LP is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party proudly stands for venitism. The most efficient political system is venitism, where everything is private, there are no taxes at all, there is no parliament, and a powerless infinitesimal government is chosen and supported not by hoi polloi, but by the most generous benefactors.
Venitis asserts that you own your body and your soul, and nobody should dictate what you take in and what you take out. Speech, education, heresy, habeas corpus, military service, mating, healthcare, abortion, cloning, drugs, guns, and euthanasia should be personal choices.
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