Just a heads up, cousinlucky, people left AOL in droves ages ago because of email and chat being flooded with "messages" with zero message but just forwarded links of things that caught some people's fancy. It's just not a wise form of Netiquette. At least add something of your own making instead of simply assuming others don't have the same access as you.to news stories, often of only local interest if linked without something from you to expand on the concept. .

I agree with Enorbet, who said it extremely well.

Quite honestly, I don't want LQ to be "a syndicated news feed," as it has fairly recently become.

"Narcotics have been big business" for thousands of years, one way or another. The British Empire grew rich and fat on little bricks of opium, each one bearing Queen Victoria's official seal. To merely hyperlink a story that says that is to subsume LQ into a syndicated feed.

Although it really ticks me off when people sell drugs to schoolchildren; I have to agree with the " libertarian mindset " that " the war on drugs " is never going to ever work!! The " ban on alcohol " produced violent criminal gangs and the corruption of all police departments and public officials and today the U.S.A. is going through the very same thing with illegal narcotics!! Why keep continuing to use a policy that never works??

Another " major drug bust " in New York City!!

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.3015423

Sorry to simply post a quote from song lyrics but it is spot on

Nothing has a greater profit margin than contraband. All one needs to do to increase that margin is make any legal purchase/possession even more inaccessible. A non-fiction look into this process can be found all over but this documentary let's you make the decision -- Dr. Feelgood - Dealer or Healer? ---

the same companies that own the U.S. government also own the hard drug market and use emotional addiction slaves to sell the drugs the slaves are also used as toys for sadists witch is a pay off to crocked law enforcement officers and politicians witch is something that can't be bought for love of money ( this comes from a life in the slave trade ) they also hand over the little guys in the drug trade to make it look like law enforcement is doing something this also eliminates competition
so like any other war the so called war on drugs is good for business
if these drugs were legal they would also be regulated witch big business hates More than Prohibition and they would be taxed big business simply can't stand giving a cut of it's profits to the government
so
the war on drugs is here to stay

For a deep look into almost every aspect of the workings of government and prohibition type laws, The Wire, a series that aired on HBO and written (only partly fact-based fiction, the rest quite real) is a superb look into the interdependent evolution of the crime, corruption, status quo on very level and the all too real tradeoffs that plague a civilization that attempts such laws.

For a completely real life look, keep your eyes on Portugal who has not made all drugs actually legal but has decriminalized all drugs for going on some 6 years now with amazing results... some bad, most really good for society as a whole. Thankfully many governments are watching Portugal very closely since, as The Wire clearly demonstrates, nothing clogs up government progressively worse all the time than having to enforce such laws, especially if those leaders wish to live in the society they help create.