Comment & Debate
John Hawkins. “In defense of the drug war.” Human Events. January 25th, 2007: “If we legalized drugs, we’d be able to tax them and bring in more revenue for the state. But, how is that working out with alcohol and cigarettes? In 2004 and 2005, 39% of all traffic-related deaths was related to alcohol consumption and 36% of convicted offenders ‘had been drinking alcohol when they committed their conviction offense.” When it comes to cigarettes, adult smokers ‘die 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.” But, will we ever get rid of tobacco or alcohol? No, both products are too societally accepted for that and perhaps more importantly, the government makes enormous amounts of revenue from their sale. Do we really want to be sitting around 10 or 15 years from now saying, ‘Gee, we’d like to get rid of heroin, but how could we replace the revenue we make from taxing it at an exorbitant rate?'”