Matthia;
I don't know if you've been paying attention, but all of the problems that you cite as being a result of the decriminalization of drugs are already happening. I grew up in Detroit, where crack was king. In the neighborhood where I lived, you could see the crack houses sprouting up daily. Dealers were everywhere, and pot smokers smoked it like it was legal out in the open. I personally called in several "crimes in progress" and the entire neighborhood went to a community policing meeting to report the addresses of the crack houses, yet nothing was done. Why? Because the cops were on the take. The cruiser would pull up, someone would run out, toss an envelope in the window, and the cruiser would leave. I know this because I saw it.
The war on drugs was never about drugs, it was about circumventing the Constitution to give greater powers to the fledgling police state. The assault weapons used by drug dealers were never intended to be used on the police. Heck, everyone knew that the dealers would be back on the street before the cops were done with their paperwork! The assault weapons were to be used as protection from other drug dealers.
The most frustrating thing is that we already have an historical model for what happens when you outlaw a substance; Prohibition. Prohibition gave rise to organized crime, government and police corruption, and the Kennedys <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> All things that could have been avoided if the temperance nuts had just left well enough alone.
Each generation has a President that declares war on some social ill. The 60's had Johnson declare war on poverty, the 70's had For declare war on inflation, the 80's had Reagan declare war on drugs, the 90's had Clinton declare war on "militia groups" (and common decency), and here at the dawn of the 21st century, we have W declaring war on terrorism. The problem with all of these wars is that whenever the government sought to fight these wars, the problem got worse.
Militarizing the police hasn't done anything but get people on both sides killed. The recent confrontation in South Carolina is but another symptom of the disease. The chasm between the police and the policed is growing wider. If this trend continues, the end result will be a police state where violence is seen as the only recourse for the average individual. The courts aren't upholding the Constitution, judges and bureaucrats invariably are siding with the government that pays them, the politicians have lost sight of the fact that they are our employees not our rulers, so they strut around and enact laws that restrict our freedoms, secure that they, the anointed ones, won't fall subject to those laws, and the LEO's from the local sheriff on up to the Fibbies are being trained to be soldiers for the state. The public has been conditioned to accept the violent death of dissenters and those that the government deems as "fringe".
When the Philadelphia police dropped a satchel charge on MOVE, destroying an entire city block in the process, heads rolled, the public was outraged, and jobs were lost. There was protest, and inquiries made. The end result was a copmplete reorganization of the administration of the Philly Police Dept. 20 years later, 80 men, women, and children are besieged, tormented and eventually immolated in a government sponsored raid, and people barely gave notice. The cover-up that followed was so amateurish and blatant that there should have been rioting in the streets over the insult to our intelligence, but nothing was done. It was smoothed over and forgotten.
It's no wonder, then that Law Enforcement Bureaucrats don't respect the Constitution, why should they when the great body of the American public doesn't?
