Who Benefits from The War on Drugs

I have often wondered what the primary driving force is that keeps marijuana illegal. The reasons it was banned in the first place was purely political, as is the reasons the government continually denies the benefits of marijuana, but in order for the reasons to be political there must be someone who gains from it. The government does not gain anything by keeping it illegal and continuing the futile war on drugs. There are a lot of people out there with a variety of possible beneficiaries, but for the most part I don’t buy it.

Suspect #1 The Cotton and Wood Pulp industries
It is said that the cotton and wood pulp industries saw hemp as a possible danger to their market strangle hold and lobbied to ban hemp entirely by attacking marijuana. The problem I see with this is that hemp predates either the wood pulp or cotton industries and wood pulp and cotton were already winning the war against hemp. As for now both industries are so far advanced that it is doubtful hemp will ever be seen as anything but an environmentally friendly alternative.

Suspect #2 The Government
Ok The government is obviously the entity directly keeping marijuana illegal, but what are the reasons for doing so, what does the government gain? Some say that the prison system makes the government money, but I really can’t see it. Sure prison guards are employed and pay their taxes on that, but since they get paid by the government it is a net loss, add to that the cost to keep marijuana users incarcerated it works out to a huge net loss. So what does the government have to fear from legalizing it? It would save the government billions.

Suspect #3 The Religious Right
The Bull headed, bible-thumping, neo-cons. I am not talking your average run of the mill, blue-blooded conservative; I am talking your raving lunatic Steven Harper style nut job conservative. These people want to keep marijuana illegal based on the theory that marijuana is bad and evil and cursed by god. The problem with that is that most of their arguments hinge on it being a sin to use marijuana, but they have zero scriptural backing, except in that it is illegal and you must follow the laws of man as long as they don’t contradict the laws of God. So if marijuana would be legalized it would no longer be a sin.

Suspect #4 The Drug Dealers
I am not talking your average street corner thug here, I mean your big multimillion dollar drug cartels. I know, seems odd that the ones who profit off the drug would want to keep it illegal, but follow me on this one. If marijuana were legalized it would then be regulated and taxed. Right now the drug cartels pay no taxes, and have no restrictions on who they can sell it too. Sure after legalization they will probably still exist illegally and still sell tax free, but they will have to compete with legal vendors. Competition would cripple and destroy all but the smallest outfits. The large ones would collapse under their won weight.

I have always said in this blog that if you want to stop drug related crime you just have to legalize the drug. What I never considered is perhaps the people lobbying to keep the drug illegal are the criminal organizations that profit over the illegality of the drug. As any half decent detective novel will tell you “Follow the Money”.