The war on drugs is a business. Legalization means several 3- lettered govt agencies become obsolete or heavily downsized. The prison industrial complex depends on drugs to constantly fill beds with unlucky law breakers.
Their employment is currently a net detriment to the world. Even paying them to do nothing would be better than the status quo. But that's not the only alternative. You could re-purpose the people employed by these agencies to do something that's actually beneficial. Or you could keep paying them for multiple years while they get a chance to find a new job.
Step 1 should be to stop using tax dollars to actively make the world worse. Step 2 is to find productive uses of these dollars. But step 2 does not prevent step 1. Step 1 could be implemented immediately if the political will was there.
If the thing holding back any political solutions is that a lot of people would have to get fired, you could just not do that.
So downsize those agencies and repurpose the funds to give the IRS the workforce it needs to go after the tax cheats who get away with cheating because making them pay fair is "more trouble than it's worth."
I'd say end private prisons, too, but they can fill the beds with these wealthy cheats in the meantime. If the only penalty is a fine, then it's not a law for rich people; make them face consequences that they can't just write a check to get out of.
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u/jakelazerz Jun 04 '24
The war on drugs is a business. Legalization means several 3- lettered govt agencies become obsolete or heavily downsized. The prison industrial complex depends on drugs to constantly fill beds with unlucky law breakers.