The problem that keeps the "Drug War" going is that it is profit driven. If we eliminate the profit we eliminate the war.
I do not have all the answers and I certainly wish that I did. The main thing in eliminating drug abuse is education and the elimination of profit from the business itself.
As a businessman I am not going to market a product for which there is no demand and no profit because it simply is not going to make me rich.
What we have proved over the past 30 plus years is that in spite of increasing budgets and increasing legal sanctions is that we have a monstrous and at the same time dismal failure. We are no farther ahead now then we were when Richard Milhouse Nixon signed legislation for the most sweeping and toughest drug laws in the history of the United States in the 1970's. In the years since that legislation was signed into law strange things have began to become obvious. If we had sense we would abandon something that is a failure and adopt something that we would at least think would have a chance at working.
Why are we not doing this?
Profit and money, always follow the money!
Legalize pot: Get rid of three or four very expensive pain killers used to treat cancer patients costing thousands of dollars per year per patient, eliminate several prescription drugs making pharma's rich for appetite stimulation, get rid of several very high dollar glaucoma medications because there is something in pot that radically reduces eye pressure. Look at who loses money if you legalize pot! It is that simple! Make it illegal so "big business" can make the money.
Look at which industry the leaders of the FDA and DEA came from.
I am not really advocating a blanket elimination of drug laws. I would however advocate considerable modification to what we have so that we could far better utilize our resources and over a period of say two decades see where it would take us.
The entire prescription drug system we have in the United States has one basic design flaw. This basic design flaw is that it has way too many people involved and that in and of itself raises not only the cost of the medications, but it radically raises the cost of medicine in general.
No insurance, go to ER run up a $1,000 medical bill to get some antibiotics for a case of alpha-strep. The $1,000 simply bought a prescription for a powerful broad spectrum antibiotic. Patient goes to chemist/pharmacy says I have a bad sore throat. Chemist/pharmacist hands patient a bottle of broad spectrum anti-biotics and the total cost of this is less than $100.
Optometrist who can now test for glaucoma tests and finds glaucoma. Optometrist now refers patient to MD specialist who writes prescription for medicated eye drops. Total cost to patient or insurance, about $600 for the exams. Patient or insurance pays about $250 for the medication. Change the laws: Optometrist hands patient note for medicated eye drops with eye pressures. chemist/pharmacist hands patient bottle of eye drops and patient or insurance pays total of $250 eliminating the $600 charge for the specialist.
See who loses money here?
Everything is profit driven here.
Repeatedly there have been efforts on the part of the FDA to make 100% of all vitamins and supplements illegal. They have made repeated efforts to place these things under prescription.
What would that do?
It would generate a ton of profit. That bottle of vitamin "B" because it is now a prescription item would because of reduced production volume now cost you about $45 instead of $5. There would be a physician charge and that MD could require $350 in blood tests to let you have that bottle of vitamin "B". You now have a situation where that simple bottle of vitamins would cost as much as $500 instead of $5. You are being in essence legislated into furnishing a compulsory profit to various private industries.
These attempts have been repeatedly struck down, but they just keep trying because the more your life and the ills you suffer are placed under "organized medicine" the more the profits for many will rise.
Illegal drug sales are a business. Eliminate the profit and crack down on the few things that really seriously kill people quickly and at least temporarily forget the rest.
The key is a good pharmacological education and is not a bunch of people running around trying to state that the world is simply too stupid to function without the help of well meaning bureaucrats.
Everytime you legislate to prevent stupidity you create more problems than you solve.
Think about this one:
Many years ago various states started passing laws requiring mandatory car insurance. Our legislators came to us and told us that the reason that our insurance rates were so high was because all those nasty uninsured people out there were causing all the accidents. Insurance Company lobbyists were behind this, and were able to convince your legislators that this was going to reduce insurance costs. Within two years of the passing of these laws in California rates went up. New Mexico who verifies insurance on vehicles every 6 months costing NM taxpayers a bundle in administrative time had enormous insurance rate increases. This was again legislation by a governmental organization requiring the subsidization of a private industry by the average citizen.
I hate to point out that there are still many uninsured motorists out there and these laws radically increased profits for private insurance companies while at the same time doing nothing to solve a problem.
The drug wars are the same sadly. I wish it had worked, yet, the basic design and the fact that profits are high will now and forever do nothing more than raise your taxes while being money ill spent.
Personally, by trying something out on at least an experimental basis I think we have everything to gain and nothing to lose. When it comes to the way the United States prescription and illegal drug systems work, they both in their own way contribute to our incredible debt, do not stop the problem, and cause already over-taxed law enforcement agencies to divert energies elsewhere.
Now, that being said, there are individuals who will state and rightly so, that profits from drug sales go to fund all kinds of illegal activities. Yes, that is absolutely true. Again remove the profit and you remove the financial resource of the criminal be it domestic or foreign.
Many would think me to be ultra-liberal. In this area coming from medicine as a family business the exact opposite is true. We complain about costs of medicine as being outrageous (and it most certainly is) yet, based on the way we are doing things we are ourselves doing everything to use the laws of supply and demand which are very basic to drive the prices and desirability up instead of down.
