Just a little musing I had…
From the little I know about the workings of the illicit drug market, marijuana is one of the main crops. Pretty much everybody — at least everyone in my generation — knows at least one pot-smoker in their lives. Far fewer know people who use (or admit to the use) of actual hard drugs. But drug dealers are a lot more likely to be one-stop shops than explicitly limiting themselves to a specific drug. So the illicit drug industry — for those who are looking to use hard drugs — is served by a relatively innocuous drug like marijuana being illegal. It ensures that the drug dealers have a much wider prospective net of potential customers. To put it simply, by knowing a few marijuana users, an individual is only a few phone calls away from access to pretty much any illicit substance they want.
So the simple question is:
What would happen to the illicit drug industry if pot — and only pot — were legalized?
There’s a chance that it would sever a link between most people and most dealers. How much illicit drug use would go away simply by legalizing the one drug that connects a large group of drug users to their black market connections?
We’re not just talking about a slippery slope here. There are several reasons why allowing people to access pot will cut off demand for other drugs.
Many people only take drugs to relieve themselves of stress and pain. Unlike most other drugs, marijuana has some of the least drawbacks, enough that it is recognized for use as “medicinal marijuana”. Medical marijuana is used to treat the likes chronic anxiety and arthritis. Furthermore, you have products like Vibes CBD oils which have many of the health benefits of medicinal marijuana but none of the THC that actually makes you high. Since it was approved in many places for purchase many people have simply gone off marijuana and gone straight for CBD oils and gummies. By allowing people to access healthier alternatives, we may very well nip the problem of hard drugs in the bud.
Tax revenue generated from sales of marijuana or even CBD sales could potentially fund a whole range of wellness programs to help keep people away from hard drugs. Like I said, people often take drugs because they’re stressed and miserable remove those and you remove a considerable need to take drugs
This isn’t a perfect argument. There are still factors like addiction and culture to consider. I can’t exactly guarantee world peace will come about as a result of pot legaization. But it’s food for thought.
