The war on drugs is lost. We should run up the white flag and make accommodation with the enemy. Anything other than a defeatist attitude flies in the face of reality. The war on drugs is the longest war fought by either Canada or the United States. There have been no successful advances. If anything, the front line has been retreating over the decades of this prolonged battle - for every step forward, two steps back. No new technologies or ideas are available to turn the battle around. For the United States, if not for Canada, this may be the most expensive war in history. It's typically been a low level war. Costs in any year would be well below those for a real war, but added up over the decades, the sum would be astronomical. The cost in lives, again more in the United States than Canada, has been horrendous. [continues 490 words]
THE war on drugs is lost. We should run up the white flag and make accommodation with the enemy. Anything other than a defeatist attitude flies in the face of reality. The war on drugs is the longest war fought by either Canada or the United States. There have been no successful advances. If anything, the front line has been retreating over the decades of this prolonged battle -- for every step forward, two steps back. No new technologies or ideas are available to turn the battle around. [continues 558 words]
The war on drugs is lost. We should run up the white flag and make accommodation with the enemy. Anything other than a defeatist attitude flies in the face of reality. The war on drugs is the longest war fought by either Canada or the United States. There have been no successful advances. If anything, the front line has been retreating over the decades of this prolonged battle -- for every step forward, two steps back. No new technologies or ideas are available to turn the battle around. [continues 593 words]
It's Better To Regulate The Sex Trade And Protect Sex-trade Workers. And Pot? Laws Against It Are Useless As pot and prostitution busts mount in British Columbia, one message becomes clear: We've legalized the wrong sin. Throughout history, great crime syndicates have grown rich and powerful on three traditional sins: gambling, prostitution, and illicit substances. Or, more precisely, criminal elements become rich and powerful when strait-laced governments impose their morals on the rest of us and criminalize such victimless activities. [continues 913 words]
Gambling wasn't a problem until the government stepped in Throughout history, vast criminal organizations have been built on the triad of three great sins - sex, illicit substances, and gambling. Now we've given government a legal monopoly over gambling, and our bureaucratic mobsters have hooked Nova Scotians on a billion-dollar habit - or so we learned last week as a Christmas Eve present from the Alcohol and Gaming Authority's annual report. Of these three great sins, gambling was the worst to legalize. There are good reasons to legalize prostitution or even hard drugs. They destroy lives despite their illegality. Legalization, under strict control, might help limit these pathologies. Everything was different with gambling. It was the only great sin society, in all these thousands of years, had largely solved. [continues 652 words]
