Drugs: A moral decision, a matter of choice, or a national health risk?

[The Grand Nudger]

Not any cartel that I'm aware of, but buying smuggled cigarettes has become quite common, as well as switching to rollies, natural leaf tobacco and pipes because they are less expensive...

How many days have gone by since the last cigarette related drive by shooting?

The problem here is that you're comparing different substances

The substances are different sure, but not in any way important to my position. Heroin is a processed agricultural commodity. So is whiskey, so are cigarettes.

In the case pointed I think heavier drugs like cocaine or heroin would most certainly be expensive by various reasons - Either to not incentive people to consume them, since they can ruin your life easily if you're not careful (and by ruining I mean worse effects that the ones cigs bring)

You think that smokes or alcohol can't "ruin your life easily if you're not careful". The medical establishment might have a word or two to say against that notion. But so what if we did tax the shit out of it and skyrocket the price (over what, btw...I bet it costs less to grow poppies in afghanistan than it does to grow corn or tobacco in the states - in fact...I'm sure of it. If they were taxed at similar rates the H would likely be cheaper than my Reds). Seen any seizure med shootings? I haven't, and that shit -is expensive-.

, or because the quality of those drugs and the feeling you get when you're high are so good that you got to pay for it -

And you'll find that a nice bottle of wine is something you;'re just gonna have to pay out the ass for as well. Vino based drive-bys?

If you go to a dealer, you'll find out that heroin is probably the most expensive drug, and the cheapest is weed - Not that I tried heroin, but it's generally the case -

It;s more difficult to smuggle H - and the penalties are often more severe. That said, I bet it's alot cheaper where you are - being closer to the major sources of supply. I can get -incredible- bud from a kid 20 miles from me growing on his windowsill - it's gonna be cheaper, of course - but if he had poppies growing there instead.....

I don't think shops would do any different, specially considering heroin is very addicting, there's no reason to not rise prices - When it comes to addictive products, there's a tendency of continuous demand even if the price goes up, so it's pretty smart to raise taxes there - Even if it is somehow unethical.

You keep prices low on a product that any competitor can resell for a very simple reason - so that your customer buys it from you, and not the other guy.

Look, anything that's worth money is going to be worth smuggling - to someone. Bootleg cds, knockoff jeans, whatever. The issue is that only when we have this particular confluence of value and prohibitionism does that translate into mexican cartels outgunning their governments. Of kids in the streets with Glocks protecting a market that we've -helped them- to corner. The misery attendant to all of this is -largely- but not -completely- a product of that situation. These folks aren't interested in product quality. They don't have to be. They aren't interested in customer safety, they don't have to be. Addiction wouldn't go away if we legalized and regulated these products. The demand for them wouldn't decrease, their effect on the people who use them wouldn't change - but all of that is occurring now - in our current system.....the only thing that would be harmed is the ability of criminal enterprises to profit from it, and the misery explicitly caused by a lack of adequate regulation.