Being scared of fliers and police presence instead? Completely irrational.

I hear in the sex industry they're already doing that.

Now, that's a crime.

And while I may have waxed idealistic when I said, "[T]he work of drug dealers would be no less...", I'm not kidding when I say that ending the drug war would change the way we look at poverty. We'd need only a fraction of the billions we've invested--annually and since the late '60s--in locking people up, to co-fund (along with the states) rehabilitation programs nationwide. Think of the number of men and women who would taste freedom for the first time in over a decade if we commuted mandatory minimum sentences. And with the drug war over, we'd have the money to help them get back on their feet.

Would there still be criminals? Of course. But are all drug dealers lazy? I've met dealers who work a full time job on top of dealing--driving cabs, working in the service sector, in government, in the arts--and their knowledge of different types of drugs would make them a valuable asset in the new economic sector of legal recreational substance sales.

Poverty and crime will still be issues, because their roots extend into the failure of the public school system, and a number of other government-backed failed social experiments.

But ending the drug war is a good place to start.

[As to insulting readers--it's hard to keep one's cool when called human waste, a kkk-sympathizer, ignorant southerner, etc.,etc. Nevertheless, I'll try and curb future temptations to respond to anonymous commenters with their own level of courtesy.]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23384-2004Jun7.html

Assuming that were drugs legalized that there'd be no violence isn't a logical step you can make. The violence associated just shifts to a different demographic.

Not to mention that were drugs legalized the petty dealer would be out of a job and with no skill set what's he or she going to turn to? If drugs were legalized it would be that trained pharmacist, or someone in a similar position, that would control their distribution, guided by a full set of reglations and taxations.

I'm betting that what those petty dealers turn to at that point isn't college though. They deal drugs because it's easy to make money at it, not because they fervently believe in the right of all people to get as high as they want. It's a crime of opportunity. Remove that opportunity and they will still commit crimes, just different ones, like robbing your ass when you walk out of CVS with a bag of dope.

Then selling it to someone who can't afford CVS' pot prices.

Also do all CP bloggers routinely insult their readership?

It's one thing to criticize the use or sale of drugs (non-prescription drugs, that is, because I'd have a hard time believing that every commenter above has abstained from any sort of prescription drug use), but it's quite another to deny that the violence that occurs over drugs has its roots in regulation.

When is the last time any newspaper in the U.S. topped its front page (or its metro section) with a story about gangs waging turf wars over alcohol? My guess would be 1933, the same year Congress decided to passed the 21st Amendment repealing the prohibition of alcohol.

Is race a pertinent issue when discussing drugs? Of course. Does the fact that I believe blacks suffer more than whites in the war in drugs mean that I'm morally obligated to buy my drugs from blacks? No, especially since I built my contacts at a predominantly white school and while working in a predominantly white industry. Am I morally obligated to castigate drug dealers? No, I said what I said about the Brightwood Park dealers because national evidence shows that a heavier police presence in a neighborhood with a prevalence of drug use is followed by an increase in drug-related violence. And this is true in most black market industries. (Food for thought: Would organ stealing be such a popular trope if it were legal to sell one's organs?)

Also, I don't remember positing that blacks are genetically predisposed to selling drugs. That Michael jumped to that conclusion from mine (cops are making the violence worse) is another reminder that I shouldn't have assumed that City Desk readers know anymore than what they were fed during their time in the D.A.R.E. program. I do, however, believe that certain identity groups in certain geographies are culturally pre-exposed to involvement in the drug trade.

And while it pains me to admit that I'd be sad if all the dealers I know went out and got "real jobs," it boosts my spirits to think that if the drug war ended tomorrow, the work of drug dealers would be no less legal, socially acceptable, or lucrative than the work of pharmacists.

And lastly, yes, I have a dog in this fight. But I don't think that my drug use negates the legitimacy of my argument. Unless Andrew wants to posit that ethnic and religious minorities, women, transgendered men and women, and others are banned from railing against discrimination simply because it affects them more than it does middle class white males.