KEN BURNS: PROHIBITION

Tonight I watched the first installment of the new documentary Prohibition, beautifully done as all of his documentaries have been.  While I was watching it, I thought how timely it is.  Everything he has said about the history and repeal of alcohol should be applied to dealing with the drug problem, specifically marijuana..

The government is losing tax money,  that is money going to drug dealers and cartels. As with all illegal dealings, those who run them do it with violence and coercion and have no regulation.  While many in our enforcement employees are not without shameful and brutal actions at times, they do not quite come up to the callousness of the illegals.

Since there was never a Constitutional amendment to make drugs illegal, we need only rewrite the law to make selling of, at the very least marijuana as legal, tax it, regulate growers thus curtailing the need for importing it,  It would be likely that  those who are currently in control will not give up easily; those who are being bribed will lose a source of income with resistance, and new people will have jobs and start making money, feeding the economy rather than the drug lords.

It could happen easily if people were really thinking of their country and not their own fear of drugs.  Perhaps people will see that the evil is not in the smoking of marijuana but in those who secretly make a profit as long as it is illegal.