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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gst" data-source="post: 52958" data-attributes="member: 373"><a href="http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/economic-moral-case-legalizing-cocaine-heroin" target="_blank">http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/economic-moral-case-legalizing-cocaine-heroin</a><a href="http://www.debate.org/debates/Legalizing-Cocaine/1/" target="_blank">http://www.debate.org/debates/Legalizing-Cocaine/1/</a><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/18/opinion/l-yes-legalize-cocaine-and-fix-its-price-786788.html" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/18/opinion/l-yes-legalize-cocaine-and-fix-its-price-786788.html</a>Sound familiar? Our panel arrived at this solution: If the Government were to restrain the supply of cocaine - not through arrests and seizures, which have proved unsuccessful, but through legalization and price setting, using import regulations and taxation - we believe that positive results would be realized. The drug lords' violence would end, and we could finally determine exactly how large this country's cocaine use is. The millions of dollars being spent on fruitless enforcement could be used instead to address abuse and addiction problems.You contend that legalization would guarantee an increase in use, but we disagree. We all grew up in an age where illegal drugs were easier to buy than beer. Why? Because liquor is controlled by the state and must be purchased in stores by adults, but drugs are purchased on the street by anyone. If an individual has the desire to use cocaine, he has ample opportunity today. We believe the situation could get better only by unromanticizing its illegality.The only way America can begin to solve its cocaine problem is by controlling supply. Trying to control demand infringes upon too many freedoms. Governmental regulation and taxation of a legal cocaine supply would allow the Government to set prices. A higher cocaine price would reduce demand, and we see that as the primary goal. F. STEWART ARNOLD Locust Valley, L.I., Aug. 3, 1988- - - Updated - - -Americans today do not have the ability any longer to say "that is wrong,I won't accept that" . Hardly a day goes by any more I don;t read something that makes me shake my head and ask WTF is wrong with this country. The degree of the slope gets steeper every year.</blockquote>

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