With all of the talk of Obama’s “Economic Stimulus” bill, which I’ve heard called many things from Rush Limbaugh’s “Porkulus” bill to Hannity’s “End of Capitalism As We Know It” and at least on the right, there seems to be a pretty general consensus that the thing is a bad plan.

Besides tax cuts, however, I haven’t heard much of an alternate idea from Republicans, and one of the problems with the laissez faire approach is that the American public has demonstrated through previous depressions and recessions that they want the government to do “something” to alleviate the problem. Unfortunately, “something” is often worse than nothing, but I have an idea that no one is talking about.

I’m talking about drug legalization. Let’s start with marijuana, which is less addictive than tobacco and has caused zero deaths due to overdose (unlike alcohol) and has no long-term mental health effects, so the issue becomes more black-and-white. The debate over whether marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco has been fought, and the consensus is in: it is. If it was legal, along with hemp which is also illegal, there would suddenly be an income outlet for the thousands of unemployed, a cash crop which can be grown small scale on bad land and even in cheap PVC hydroponics in the cities. The demand for the non-addictive drug has already been demonstrated, and hemp has many industrial uses which I won’t enumerate here but are easy to find on the Internet.

Now, because marijuana is easily grown there aren’t really drug wars fought over it. The drug wars now ravaging Mexico between the drug cartels and the Mexican government are caused by “hard drugs” like cocaine and methamphetamine.

Coke, meth, and opium derivatives are harmful and addictive. Heroin addicts often lose their teeth, and meth has been known to destroy lives. So why would anyone try either of these horrible drugs? The answer: marketing. Meth costs a fortune on the street, and so does heroin, because they are illegal and addictive. This combination causes an extremely high demand as junkies try to get their fix and a very high scarcity so the cost skyrockets. With high prices and high profits, the drug lords have the money to fund pushers to find more vulnerable users and fight the police and militaries that dare stop their trade.

These laws are put in affect to “protect us,” but they end up costing the government billions of dollars, cause gang wars in the inner cities (gangs, like the cartels in Mexico, are funded by drug money), and even the sovereign state of Mexico is under threat of toppling due to the unstoppable flow of drug money. Are we safer now?

The only way to end these wars, this senseless violence, is to legalize drugs. All of them. But marijuana is the first step. If marijuana becomes legal, we will be well on our way to the legalization of all drugs and the end of drug wars, and will benefit from an economic stimulus as an added bonus. This legalization will birth a trillion-dollar industry, clean the slate of over a million Americans who were found guilty of possession, and save the government several billion dollars yearly.

Obama should listen to this advice. I’m not the only one giving it; recent surveys show that marijuana legalization is the #1 most wanted gift from the president his voters are hoping for. So let’s get a bullet list. Legalize marijuana and what does the American public (and Obama) get:

  • Happy constituents
  • Lower cost of prisons (fewer inmates)
  • Economic stimulus
  • A step toward the end of gang violence
  • Plummeting usage of very hard drugs such as meth as pushers vanish
  • Help for addicts will become more available (like AA for alcoholics)

Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? Then why, I wonder, doesn’t anyone ever bring it up?