Link of the Day: Time to Legalize
The always insightful Glenn Greenwald touches on a subject I’ve railed about numerous times: The heavy cost of the War on Drugs, and how legalization, empirically speaking, is the way to go.
In particular, he shines a light on my Iberian Peninsula neighbor (for two more days, anyway…Spain is awesome), Portugal:
In 2001, Portugal became the only EU-member state to decriminalize drugs, a distinction which continues through to the present… Evaluating the policy strictly from an empirical perspective, decriminalization has been an unquestionable success, leading to improvements in virtually every relevant category and enabling Portugal to manage drug-related problems (and drug usage rates) far better than most Western nations that continue to treat adult drug consumption as a criminal offense.
UPDATE: Shawn Hoffman of the great sports business site Squawking Baseball passes along a clip of Ron Paul pwning Stephen Baldwin in a debate over legalizing marijuana on Larry King Live. Says Shawn: “This is like Kobe going one-on-one against Tim Kurkjian.”
To which I say, no way. I know for a fact that aside from being one of the nicest guys in the business, Kurkjian is an excellent basketball player who’s made frequent appearances in Cal Ripken’s hoop home games. I’d say this clip is closer to Alex Ovechkin vs. me in hockey–and I can’t skate more than five feet without falling down.
Decide for yourself:
