In hard times, we've already got a ready made revenue source, but today, it's illegal!

There was a time when talking about legalizing pot was guaranteed to mark you as a hippy and a counterculturist.

Today, it is becoming almost mainstream - there are even Republicans suggesting legalizing it to raise taxes!

And why not?  The Drug War has turned into a major and dismal failure.  It is so bad, we should stop calling it a war, so we don't have to admit to losing one!  It has forced millions of Americans into prison, cost the entire economy billions in lost revenue enforcing laws that a vast majority of Americans have at one time or another broken flagrantly.  It has turned our police forces into corrupt criminal organizations, forcing them into the position of sometimes trumping up charges simply for the purpose of confiscating property that by Federal law, comes back to them as additional funding.

The second house my dear cyber-wife and I bought, we bought at a considerable savings - because the owner was afraid her daughter, who was dealing drugs, would get raided, and the police would have been able to confiscate the house as supporting that drug trade.  The loan she had, of course, would have been called in immediately by the bank, for which she would have had no way to pay.

We spend billions as a nation enforcing our drug laws at the borders, and any competent drug cop will tell you that we barely catch a fraction of what gets through.

So, why not legalize it?  Legalize drugs, too, and establish a system of outlets to provide a subsidized distribution network that would so undercut the street price of drugs that the market would collapse overnight.  Control it like alcohol, tax it like alcohol.  Retroactively declare an amnesty for all individual drug crimes (possession of amounts too small to be considered a distribution business, and so forth) and release all drug prisoners who have no history of violence.  Wipe their records clean of any convictions.

It is time to clean up the insanity we created when we started this ill-advised, ill fated mess.

More importantly, it is time to reap the monetary rewards that heretofore have gone to the violent, lawless drug lords.  I think the Mexicans would thank us profusely.