Get rid of the pushers by making it unprofitable and you can get the junkies cleaned up, the crime rate drops all around. Let all the nonviolent drug offenses out, buys that got caught with a bag of weed and save the taxpayers $100k/yr for each of them.

@Surfpirate brother... it's all about the government getting their share of the profits... taxes over here are a racket...

@BucketlistBob that seems to be the problem, too many people making big money of the suffering of others. Cops could be spending their time catching real criminals like bankers and stockbrokers, all the money spent on prisons could be spent on schools or hospitals - at least that's what they did in Portugal.

@BucketlistBob Isn't private enterprise the real racket? Taxes at least get spent on national parks, libraries, roads, police, fire service, public health, safety regulations etc. I know some of it gets lost on the carousel of corruption (such as defence spending to companies that fund politicians who vote on defence spending....) but that's also due to capitalist corruption and, ultimately, the private sector.

@Gareth I'm talking about the government recieving the taxes from new enterprise. Not taxes spent on national parks.

There were some addiction problems but not like we see now a days, much of it was medical ignorance of the time, like prescribing laudanum for female hysteria which could mean anything from post partum depression to nervous breakdown to menopause.