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level dealers. Yet that is the approach favored by law enforcement in this country while recreational users and dealers at the higher levels of our society are relatively immune from any impediments to the flow of drugs in their lives.

Arresting those at the bottom of the totem pole can not achieve any lasting results in the war on drugs because there are many others waiting to take their places in the distribution network. In truth, so long as the amounts of money involved remain, cartel leaders are no harder to replace than are street level dealers. There will always be someone ready and willing to step into a vacancy no matter the level involved.

The only way to truly stop the flow of drugs is to remove the profit motive. Controlled legalization is one method and quite possibly the only one. Prior to 1937 marijuana was legal in the USA. Cocaine was an ingredient in the original Coca Cola formula while Seven Up contained lithium. Opium derivatives were once available over the counter and despite the ready availability of these now illegal substances, I don't remember reading about a massive drug problem.

The only drawback that immediately comes to mind is that, once legalized, Washington would probably tax recreational drugs to the extent that it would become profitable for smugglers to re-enter the picture.

Learn more about this author, Rick Fontes.
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