Quote:Sure it doesn't solve the problem of addiction, though statistics would lead me to believe legalization wouldn't increase addiction rates in the same way that the "war on drugs" didn't decrease it. The difference is that a large percentage of the tax income could be put towards rehabilitation programs (in addition to the ~15% of the current "drug" budget that's already earmarked for rehabilitation programs) and there would still be a net positive in terms of state and federal funds.

 

There are many problems to solving the "ultimate problem", that being drug addiction/abuse.  Let's look at one of the problems that would need to be solved.  Price and taxation.

 

No matter what, there will always be an "underground" for narcotics.  Let's take crack as an example.  Let's say that on the street right now a gram of crack costs $10.  You sell it legally for $10 and tax it, it will still be cheaper to buy it on the street than it would be to buy it legitimately.  You could lower the price a bit, but the underground is still going to undercut the price.  Pretty soon the price gets low enough to where the tax that it brings in isn't enough to really fund the legal sale of it.

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