WHY WOULD THEY KEEP THIS A SECRET?

[Rick]

Carol F. Worden

Portugal legalized drugs over ten years ago - providing the drugs cheaply. just 15 percent above cost, to addicts -- cutting out big organized crime.


http://www.truthwinds.com/siterun_data/ ... 1311010370

Portugal legalized ALL previously banned street drugs just over ten years ago, and they did it intelligently. Instead of criminally prosecuting drug users and dealers, Portugal now handles matters relating to drug use as medical issues. At the time Portugal took this action, there were over 100,000 heroin addicts. Ten years after Portugal took this action, there are only 40,000 heroin addicts.

Do I have your attention?

Illegal drug dealing is deemed a crime in the United States, but it must be dealt with differently than other classes of crime. For example, the criminal justice system in the United States works fairly well by incarcerating violators who commit crimes like robbery, burglary, rape and murder, but it hasn't had any effect on the illegal drug trade due exclusively to the high profitability in being an illegal drug smuggler/dealer. For every drug dealer the cops take off the street, there are two more willing to kill each other to fill the vacancy.. Portugal recognized this difference, so they decided the very first step in their plan of action would be to immediately make illegal drug dealing unprofitable. How does one do that? Simple. All they did was allow licensed pharmacies to sell those previously illegal drugs over the counter upon demand at no more than 15% over actual cost of manufacture.

The illegal drug trade in Portugal collapsed overnight! No illegal drug smuggler/dealer could possibly compete with pharmacy-grade drugs being sold by the Portuguese government at a margin of only 15% over actual cost of manufacture, because the true cost of manufacturing cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, etc. is extremely low. To add a cherry on top, the Portuguese also prohibited advertising of any kind for the previously banned drugs, and of course they prohibited the sale of such drugs to minors.

Call it a crime if you like, but in reality, drug dealing is an obscenely profitable business, and the only way you can effectively destroy such a business is to make it unprofitable. If it takes a government to do that, so be it, but remember this Portuguese Model is not based on theory but on hard facts and solid results. You can't argue with that kind of success, so those threatened by such a prospect resort to lying, as in, "Are you going to believe what you see, or what I tell you"?

A great example of this was the debate over allowing average law-abiding citizens to carry concealed guns in public. Those against the idea argued that armed people in road-rage incidents or having a heated discussion in a bar will pull their guns and start shooting wild-west style. That didn't happen, and now that over 30 U.S. states have enacted concealed carry laws, the proof is in the pudding. If you allow law abiding citizens to carry a concealed gun in public, you are in fact increasing a quasi-police presence without having to pay for it. Criminals carry guns concealed as a matter of doing business anyway, so you might as well match their firepower with a bunch of carefully screened, law-abiding citizens who are packing a big surprise of their own. After all, when did you ever hear of a rape being committed with a marked patrol car nearby? Criminals try to commit crimes when the cops aren't around or cannot respond in time to stop them. Armed citizens can be found anywhere and anytime, and they aren't driving marked cars or wearing police uniforms. As such, arming law-abiding citizens not only reduces violent, public crime, but it is also cost effective.

It was a severe government financial shortfall that caused Portugal to change their street drug interdiction policy, and the results are nothing short of spectacular, so why isn't anyone with our own government pointing to Portugal as the model the U.S. needs to follow if we are to defeat the illegal drug trade permanently? In fact, why is the Portuguese Model being ignored here? When you talk to most people you meet in the course of the day, ask them if they've heard that Portugal won their own War on Drugs and you'll get a blank look in return. This, in spite of the fact the Portuguese Model has a 10-year successful track record. Of the very sparse comments I have heard spoken here of the Portuguese Model, the usual response is, "It won't work here".

My ass it won't work here! There are certain principles of business which apply to all free-market environments, and one of those principles is that a business must be profitable on its own without government subsidies. The profitability of the illegal drug trade in the United States and anywhere else is D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T upon those drugs remaining illegal, therefore it is a government subsidy of sorts which keeps the street drug trade profitable -- by L-A-W!

What complicates a rather simple remedy here are all the people employed in legal endeavors that are dependent on street drugs remaining illegal. They are comprised of the DEA and all those employed by drug interdiction agencies throughout the United States. They are attorneys, judges, prosecutors and rehabilitation facilities. They are corrections officers. They are individuals who secretly make millions from the illegal drug trade and desperately no not want to see the Portuguese Model implemented here, because they know full-well what will happen if it is. They are local and state law enforcement agencies that receive large annual grants from the feds for their interdiction efforts. I could go on and on, but whenever the media wants an interview with an "authority" to discuss the prospect of drug legalization, who do they ask? They ask the very people I've just listed here who have a stake in keeping street drugs illegal!

The usual picture these tainted souls paint is that the use of currently illegal drugs will explode. Well sure, if you just stop arresting drug dealers and let them keep pushing their poison on our kids, that could very well happen. But the Portuguese Model put those street drug dealers out of business overnight because the Portuguese Government literally destroyed their motive for pushing those drugs. For example, If a street dealer entices a new user through the usual system of distributing free drugs at a party, the new user can just go to a licensed pharmacy to buy the same drugs that are pharmacuetically pure and sold at a fraction of what the street dealer can sell them for. When you destroy the motive for selling illegal street drugs, that being the obscene profitability, you destroy the business altogether, and that business is dependent upon getting new users to enter the market.

Can you imagine the effect that would have here? The Mexican drug cartels would cease to smuggle and sell drugs, which is what all the fighting is about in Mexico anyway. The street gangs all over the U.S. would immediately lose their prime source of revenue. Burglaries in the United States would plummet, and so would insurance rates. Street crime would take a steep dive, and the prospect of somebody having to sell your bloody Rolex Watch for $250.00 for their next fix would be but a bad memory. Violent property crimes like home invasion robberies and street muggings would drop dramatically. Finally, the cost to local, state and federal budgets to arrest, prosecute and incarcerate people for drug crimes would be replaced by the substantially lower-cost remedial measures necessary to encourage current drug users to seek medical help in overcoming their addiction. After all, if current illegal drug users can go to licensed pharmacies to buy their drugs of choice, the pharmacy can give the addict information on where to go and who to contact. If the Portuguese Model produced 60,000 less heroin addicts in just ten years, it would work just as well here.

Don't hold your breath.

Carl F. Worden

[Arianddu]

Because there is political mileage in scare tactics, and the War On Drugs is an easy pitch.

Because there is corruption in the US legal, political and law enforcement systems, funded by drug money, and because those making money out of drugs do not want their market to disappear.

Because the Morality Brigade would rather scream about the evils of drugs and demand that we 'fix' the problem by taking them away, instead of addressing the reasons why people use and become addicted to drugs in the first place.

Because ordinary parents all over the country would be up in arms about the thought of drugs being made available to their kids by the government, whilst being steadfastly, and frequently willfully ignorant that their children already have better access to drugs than they would if those same drugs were legal.

Because there are real fears about where organised crime will shift their operations, and how they will fight back if their money tree is taken away from them.

[Don]

It's always easier to do things on a small scale as is the usually the case in a lot of these European countries. 10.6 million people gives you a lot less narcotics to deal with than a market with 300 million people.

[Hollywood]

I would think selling heroin in our litigious country is a good way to be put out of business in just a matter of months. Even pure heroin can kill a person in small amounts. Then the pharmacy gets sued and put out of business on legal costs alone.

[S2M]

Fact is, this country needs the illegal drug trade in this country. The CIA allows the drugs to come in from SA. There is a whole industry revolved around combating it. You will never see it go away...people in high positions are making money from it. Politicians, and law enforcement types would rather be praised for combating it then making it go away all together....its another self-sustaining vicious cycle....

[mikemarrs]

Thing most people don't know is for decades there has been a problem with street drugs like cocaine and heroin but a new report just released has said for the first time that pills such as xanax,oxycodone,vicodin are now the leading cause of rehab and people overdosing or dying.its no longer the everyday drugs on the street but now its prescription medicine doctors write out causing the biggest problems.

[Greg]

It's always easier to do things on a small scale as is the usually the case in a lot of these European countries. 10.6 million people gives you a lot less narcotics to deal with than a market with 300 million people.

This sounds pretty reasonable.

[mikemarrs]

US authorities have arrested nearly 2,000 people on narcotics charges in a 20-month sting targeting Mexico's La Familia Michoacana drug cartel, the US Justice Department said Thursday.

The ongoing multi-agency takedown saw 1,985 people arrested, along with the seizure of about $62 million in US dollars, and more than 12 tons of drugs.

The arrests and charges were carried out in 12 states and the US capital Washington in a major operation dubbed "Project Delirium" and the announcement came just two months after Mexican law enforcement officials arrested La Familia leader Jose de Jesus Mendez-Vargas.

"Project Delirium is the second successful, strategic and surgical strike to disrupt and destroy one of the most violent Mexican cartels, La Familia," said administrator Michele Leonhart of the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

"Through their violent drug trafficking activities, including their hallmark of supplying most of the methamphetamine imported into the United States, La Familia is responsible for recklessly and violently destroying countless lives on both sides of the border."

Among the drugs which were rounded up were 2,773 pounds (1,258 kilograms) of methamphetamine, 6,000 pounds (2,722 kilograms) of cocaine, 1,005 pounds (456 kilograms) of heroin, 14,818 pounds (6,721 kilograms) of marijuana and $3.8 million in other assets.

Deputy Attorney General James Cole said Project Delirium and other such efforts were "disrupting the operations of Mexican drug cartels in the United States and Mexico."

"The arrests and seizures we are announcing today have stripped La Familia of its manpower, its deadly product and its profit, and helped make communities large and small safer," he added, vowing cooperation with Mexican law enforcement to "diminish and ultimately eliminate" drug cartels.

[Liquid_Drummer]

The DEA is in the business of keeping the DEA in business. We know that these drugs are illegal not because of health issues. They dont give a shit about that. They are illegal because so much money is made in busts.

The DEA in a joint effort with Mexico busted one big fish. HE had enough money and assets to pay for health care for every man women and child in the U.S. FOR 14 FUCKING YEARS !

Where is it now ?? Where is all the money? They let these cartel members kill people for years before they do anything. Why ? Because the longer they wait the fatter the payoff.

Here are pics from the bust in this link. Read the small paragraph at the bottom. The reason drugs are illegal is because people in power are making money off of it being that way.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/50723100/Mexican-Drug-Bust

[Andrew]

Drugs = momey. For too many people. Smaller countries could get away with this change to law and I salute them.

Be a new civil war if the USA tried to do this.