The real question is: What are you trying to solve?
I'm not trying to solve anything. Other posters espoused the theory that it was the illegal nature of drugs like Cocaine, Marijuana, Methamphetamine and so on as being the root economic cause behind the profitability of Mexican drug trafficking organizations, and thus caused the violence in Northern Mexico. Further, that the legalization of drugs in the U.S. would eliminate the violence, and bring about a net savings to the U.S. by redirecting the money spent on enforcement activities. I think the most frequently heard theme is, "Legalize it, regulate it, and tax the hell out of it."
My reply was merely to question if legalization would decrease public expenses, and then later to espouse a counter-argument that legalization actually might not decrease our costs because we would just shift expenses from some areas to others. My points were backed up with estimated costs to society (in the hundreds of Billions) regulating alcohol consumption and numerous other public and private costs associated with something that was "legalized, regulated, and heavily taxed." And, by observations made about the problems encountered in Amsterdam, where quasi-legalized and regulated drug sales and usage has created what some see as a "public health problem".
It was all about economics and public health, and public health is thrown in just because current political debates seem to want to shoulder society with more of the costs to provide public health.
You can see whatever you want in this statement, as you apparently found it to be a cause for some bias on my part:
I spent most of my life making a good living regulating either illegal drugs; illegal sex acts; or legalized, regulated and taxed alcohol.
But all I was saying, and all I see there, is a simple statement that I have years of experience in the inner workings of the manufacture, importation and sale of illegal drugs, the inner workings of prostitution and other illegal aspects of the sex industry, the diversion of legal drugs into illegal sales, and the violation of criminal laws regulating alcohol sales in a mostly legal industry.
Since we were discussing legalizing, regulating and taxing what are now illegal drugs; and, I have experience in investigating all aspects of the criminal sale of drugs, as well as investigating and regulating the illegal aspects of the otherwise legal (but regulated to one extent or another) activities of alcohol sales and sexual activity, I thought I might first lay down a foundation for the basis of my opinion.
What I'm saying is that my opinions on drug crimes, alcohol crimes and commercialized illegal sex are not just some random babblings that I conjured up from television, novels, discussion boards and a few anecdotes. I've testified as an expert witness in all of those things in state and federal court, and five years after retiring I still get calls from people wanting my opinion (on and off the stand) on these subjects.
I don't have a clue where you came up with all this "sin tax" and "lifestyle choices" from. Actually, I do have my suspicions, but I don't see why you're dragging all of that into something that was simply a discussion of the economics of the problem. Maybe you have some bias?
If I have the money and the inclination to spend it on gambling, pot, hookers or religious whacko's, who are you to tell me that I can't? And why would you care?
Just another member of society who gets taxed to pay the bills for expenses created when some of my fellow citizens get stupid. Who are you to tell me I have to pay the bill to clean up after you and your excessive behaviors that create a public expense and increased my tax burden?
Could that cause a bit of bias? One hates to have spent their life doing meaningless things (although a lot of my mega-corp career qualifies).
You might feel as if you wasted your life making widgets, but I found arresting people was very rewarding on many levels. I never could envision rating my success by how well I could convince someone to buy the widgets I was selling, or looking at the monthly sales stats and see where I ranked (not that I'm not ultra-competitive and always knew where my stats placed me). Personally, I really don't see anything as challenging as catching bad guys. As Hemingway said, once you've hunted armed men and liked it, you'll never care for anything else thereafter.
Certainly I received negative feedback (flipped birds, "oink oink" sound effects and a few eggs and rocks), but at least as numerous have been the spontaneous rounds of applause, handshakes, hugs and tearful "thank you's" I received after kicking in some bad guys' door and putting them in the back of a blue & white. You have to know you made a difference in peoples' lives when they say, "we've been praying to God that you would come and take those people away from our neighborhood". I received my share of complaints, but it was a small percentage compared to the positive feedback in letters of praise, awards, gifts, and even
offers of hero-worship sex that I received.
Or, by meaningless, did you mean I should feel that I wasted my life combating crime but never being able to eliminate it? No way, not ever, not no-how. Crime has always existed and always will - there will always be people who can't abide by society's rules. My job was to catch them, not recreate society into something unobtainable. My successes were in locking up individual criminals, and wreaking havoc and spreading fear among the rest of them.
How would your life have differed if you had spent it regulating legal drugs, legal sex acts or "legalized, regulated and taxed alcohol"? Is there a difference between those activities mentioned that are illegal and those that are not?
I'll admit that I don't understand the question. If something wasn't illegal why would I care from a professional standpoint? One of the quickest things to change in a person's mind when they start doing police work is the making of moral judgments about 90+% of the people they arrest. It's just a waste of time and gets in the way of doing the job. Arresting people who break the law is what the job is all about, and the only distinguishing most cops make is to differentiate based on how hard someone is to catch, or how blatant they were in doing their crimes. If you were bold and open you were just seen as someone who was begging to be arrested; and, if you were really good at what you did you were seen as a professional challenge. And if you were inept and easily caught, you were a joke to be told later over coffee. Other than what I needed to be able to successfully prosecute the case in court, I didn't care what you did or why you did it - I just cared if it was illegal.
Today, in my post-policing life, I don't care what you do. Well, unless you try to victimize me or mine, in which case you would be lucky to survive. But other than that, with the exception of paying the bill for whatever little disasters you may cause, I don't care if you smoke weed until you turn green, gamble away every dime you got, carouse with more whores than you can count, or sell everything and give it all to Gene Scott's widow.
What's that old saw "your freedom to swing your fists ends at the tip of my nose"? Same thing applies when it comes to people doing stupid things and expecting me to pick up the tab when things go bad.
And while you may feel that drug users, whore-mongers and gambling addicts are wrongfully persecuted for exercising some imagined right to do whatever; I think I speak for 99.8% of all cops when I say none of them are morally offended by people doing such things. It's a simple decision tree: Is it illegal? Can I make a legal arrest? Should I make an arrest or choose a lawful alternative. At some personal level there may be an opinion about such people - it usually revolves around thinking how stupid the offender is to waste his time or money on such things. Compared to all of the really evil stuff that cops witness in their careers, somebody blowing some yerba, doing a backseat tango with a ho from the stroll, or blowing the mortgage money in a backroom craps game is just a mild aberration from standard behavior.
Did I say I don't care what you do enough times?
