Marijuana decriminalization bill gaining support in Congress

[Total_Blender]

Because people addicted to drugs routinely commit crimes to pay for their habits. It is s simply public safety issue, not an issue of choice.

There are people who commit crimes to pay their rent and feed themselves. Crime is never going to go away completely.

Also, I think legalizing marijuana and allowing for legal distribution would be safer for buyers and sellers. Many marijuana sellers also deal in and use harder drugs and thats where the crime is. Opening a legal market for marijuana would deal a severe blow to the black market. And since the harder drugs are traded on the same black market it would hurt those who deal in harder drugs. Not to mention having licensed and regulated providers would ensure that users who buy from the legal market aren't given marijuana that is contaminated with other drugs.

[DieselNuts]

And since the harder drugs are traded on the same black market it would hurt those who deal in harder drugs.

Im gonna have to disagree with this. A coke head isn't gonna quit doing coke and start smoking pot in its place because its legal. It doesn't work that way.

[Total_Blender]

Im gonna have to disagree with this. A coke head isn't gonna quit doing coke and start smoking pot in its place because its legal. It doesn't work that way.

I wasn't saying that decriminalized pot would cause people to stop doing harder drugs. I was saying that decriminalizing pot and opening up a channel for legal distribution would hurt drug dealers.

The black market for pot would be seriously affected by the opening of a legal market. Since the same people who sell pot are also selling meth, coke, heroin, X, etc then if the black market for pot goes bust the market for hard drugs will be negatively effected because selling drugs will become less profitable overall.

To put it another way, if I sold ricer parts for half the price of Pep Boys, the change in price would not only affect Pep Boys' ricer part sales, it would affect price in other areas of their business as well such as batteries and tires.