California's Biggest Cash Crop

If they made grapes illegal, then grapes would be California's biggest cash crop.

And if there were a set of regulations to legitimize the production and sale of this naturally occuring weed, then we wouldn't have this problem. But we do have small problems like that, in addition to much larger problems involving overcrowded jails, increased crime, and large scale embedded infrastructure that costs upwards of $50 billion a year in tax dollars.

The War On Drugs has never impeded any flow or usage in this country, something that rarely finds its way into the news.

If drugs were legalized and regulated, I still wouldn't use them. I don't even take aspirin. But the fact that California's annual $14 billion cash crop of illegal marijuana surpasses every other crop legitimately grown in that state really ought to tell you something very important and very basic... there are enough people making so much money on illegal drugs in this country that it would be a real blow to all of them if these commodities were suddenly legalized and regulated.

When alcohol was illegal, there was a huge increase in crime in this country. Many people were killed over it, and innocently uninvolved citizens also got caught up the crossfire... just like they do now because of illegal drug activity.

How many criminals are there involved in the alcohol trade, now that it's legal and regulated?

Mandating a prohibition against the production, distribution, sale, or use of any world-wide commodity does only one thing. It makes that commodity far more valuable than it ever could've possibly been otherwise. As a horrific side effect, it also dramatically increases criminal activity involved with it.

There is a vested interest in this country to continue the status quo. If drugs were legalized and regulated, billions of dollars in tax revenue could be freed up, but that eventuality would mean that police budgets would go down, along with all the other local, state, and federal infrastructure and organization devoted to enforcing the current laws, and processing those arrested. Defending against the heightened criminal activity is great for the private security business, too.

I can be just as NIMBY about local efforts to cut down on dangerous criminal activity in Worcester as anyone else. But these problems are endemic to the nation, and they stem directly from the criminalization of commodities that, world-wide, can never be realistically expected to disappear. Only one thing can ever affect their flow, and that's the prospect of removing their artificially inflated value. All other efforts have been constantly demonstrated to have absolutely no effect at all.