Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by 6c737133 | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

6c737133

then they'll have to raise taxes to offset the reduction in CIA and DEA revenues... i meannnnn, "budgets"

View on HN

> then they'll have to raise taxes to offset the reduction in CIA and DEA revenues

Is this sarcasm?

Is the CIA & DEA even cash-flow positive?

I would imagine by not needing to enforce cocaine being illegal, we would have a lower tax burden. Then, you also get to do an excise tax - like with weed, alcohol, & cigarettes - and bring in a ton of revenue.

I can't imagine a world in which shitty, dangerous drugs that empower cartels has less negative externalities on the world than legal alternatives.

Yep, while they _can_ make some amount of money from fines it'll never come close to paying salaries to officers, covering the cost of prison, court, etc etc.

The CIA has a history of getting funding for black ops by trafficking in narcotics, which is what the parent is probably talking about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_traffi...

The creation of this very large black market has created opportunities for clandestine funding sources for organizations that don't mind acting in extra-legal ways.

The ATF also defrauded a tobacco co-op out of millions to create an unaccountable slush fund:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/us/atf-tobacco-cigarettes...

I'm sure they could pad their coffers by selling the decades of confiscated evidence on the legal market...

(I'm only joking, of course, much of that supply is full of impurities and should not be on the market)

Yeah, cause the best thing our federal agencies can do is just let whatever drugs laced with whatever shit come through the borders and kill however many people all at once because of massive overdosing.

We control the supply for a reason. 50K people dying in a single weekend from spiked drugs isn't something the US can handle.

By relegating drugs to a black market filled with fast cash, they incentivize cutting drugs and other antisocial profit-seeking behavior that would be unacceptable in an open market. If heroin users could get measured, packaged, laboratory grade product from Rite Aid, they wouldn't bother playing (car)fentanyl roulette. The reduction of costs from medical, prison, and social services alone are compelling, the elimination of a major financial support for organized crime groups, and the removal of non-job occupational options from people's choice should please employers, as it has potential to depress wages and inflation (there are no solid statistics on the prevalence of drug dealing as a livelihood or side hustle for obvious reasons, but simply observing the number of US adults who admit to recreational use in surveys shows that the number must be substantial).

> If heroin users could get measured, packaged, laboratory grade product from Rite Aid

Yeah exactly, this is particularly urgent with opiates. If people could just buy pure oxycodone pills at cost - stuff that's already manufactured - opiate addicts would be much much safer.

And as a casual user (once or twice a month), I'm extremely skeptical that this would lead to an explosion in addiction, even without any kind of legal safeguards like purchase limits.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com