US prison population hits 7 million.

[SlowwHand]

Total executions this year were 24. I think it was 24.

[Lancer]

Really? I'd have thought it would be less. Likely some fairly miserable people we can do without.

[SlowwHand]

This guy's last statement was an apology, for the accident.
Executed 8 Nov 06, last one of record.

http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/deathrow.htm

[chequita guevara]

Roughly half of all people in the prison industry are there on drug charges, mostly for possession.

[SlowwHand]

Don't blame me. I'd legalize and tax.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Geronimo
past time to concede the drug war. I'd honestly rather hav them out of jail screwing up their lives with addiction than vegging out in a cell at taxpayer expense.

How the hell would their addictions not be at taxpayer expense??? The externalities of increased spending on treatment, rehab, welfare, unemployment etc. (combined with an increase in petty crime committed to support drug habits) wouldn't be a whole lot cheaper to society than simply giving offenders three hots and a cot in jail. The taxpayer gets screwed either way.

Now if you're talking about total legalization with the explicit stipulation that addicts will receive no government assistance (except perhaps one chance at free treatment) you'd have my vote, but we both know letting them rot in the gutter would never be politically feasible.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Darius871
How the hell would their addictions not be at taxpayer expense??? The externalities of increased spending on treatment, rehab, welfare, unemployment etc. (combined with an increase in petty crime committed to support drug habits) wouldn't be a whole lot cheaper to society than giving offenders three hots and a cot in jail.

OH YES THEY ARE. Why the hell do you think California has switched from sending addicts to prison to putting them through substance abuse programs? The savings is substantial.

[Darius871]

It'd be nice to see some hard numbers on the results so far; I find it hard to believe so many externalities could even be quantified. Especially considering side effects such as petty crime, lowered productivity on the job, etc. are dispersed throughout the economy and not tabulated in state budgets.

[SlowwHand]

Legalize it and tax it, and even then the cost of the substance would be lower.
We're going to have to socialize health care. Offer the treatment if they want it for rehab. Fund it off the taxes.
Buy weed, send a heroin addict through rehab.

[Diadem]

Wether you legalize or ban drugs does not affect consumption at all. This has already been shown over and over.

Best example is The Netherlands, of course, where buying soft-drugs is actually legal. Well, not exactly legal, but not illigal either. Noone actually wants to legalize drugs formally, because other countries wouldn't like that, but any anti-softdrugs laws in existence are simply not enforced. A neat and very Dutch solution

Anyway: "When compared to other countries, Dutch drug consumption falls in the European average at six per cent regular use (twenty-one per cent at some point in life) and considerably lower than the Anglo-Saxon countries headed by the United States with an eight per cent recurring use (thirty-four at some point in life). Experts have come to the conclusion that the policies applied do not play a striking role in these statistics, though there is debate over this issue (CEDRO, 2004)."

We have the same amount of drug users as other European countries, and less than the USA. Despite drugs being legal here. And our system is considerably cheaper.

[SlowwHand]

Who said it affected consumption?

[Dis]

I say just put them all on an island. air drop some food and let them fend for themselves.

[Dis]

another idea is to put all these criminals on a sleeper ship and send it into outer space. We could call the ship the Botany Bay.

[Diadem]

Interesting video:

http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-3653114296815352489&q=penn+teller

[SlowwHand]

I bookmarked it.