Furthermore, the battle over distribution is the largest source of crime.  More prison inmates are incarcerated for drug crimes than any other crime. 

It has been stated over 100,000,000 times that we study history to avoid the problems of the past.  I believe that no one learns from the past.  Examine prohibition.  Liquor was the origin of organized crime in the early 20th century, and the source of crime in every speakeasy in America.  Finally legalized, it has become the largest revenue source and the largest profit source of the restaurant industry.  Government revenue stems not only from sales tax but also liquor licenses.  At every stage of manufacture, distribution, and consumption, liquor is taxed.  Have we learned from  history?  No.  The same should occur with drugs.

The argument for legalization clearly is not simply to generate government revenue.  The drug business is the source of the greatest tragedies in our society.  The sellers of these drugs are responsible for the agonizing number of shooting and murders in Cook County as they fight over turf.   The vast majority of those incarcerated have been convicted of drug trafficking, at an enormous cost to society.  The sellers and buyers are responsible for dog fighting, the epidemic of unimaginable unhuman cruelty whose motivation is winning bets to spend on drugs.  I was present when Mr. Kappas of the southwest side was sentenced for being a drug distributor.  He mocked the system, he mocked the judge, he mocked Cook County when he stated in unprecedented outburst, "You think you're stopping anything?   As soon as I was arrested, twenty guys began fighting for my turf!"

This commerce is the reason for the lawlessness throughout Mexico.  It is the basis for lawlessness in Afghanistan, the heroin manufacture center of the world.  How many American lives have been wasted fighting in Afghanistan resulting drug-induced domestic instability?

The police in our society know the identity of the dealers.  The dealers and buyers stand on the street corners in the inner cities.  They stand outside the high schools waiting for their clients to exit at the end of the school day.  They stand on the el platforms.  Those salespeople are allowed by the police to carry on their trade.  Why?  The answer is obvious.

The drug culture, however, is the economy of the inner city and any attempt to stop it demands a replacement economy.

The only solution is to legalize every form of drug.  The cost of production is small. Adding a large tax would not only create a new source of revenue but, with the total cost still relatively small, would also put the street corner dealers out of business.  Knowledgeable in the quality of these materials, and with a clientele developed from years of dealing, these sellers could become the clerks, managers, buyers, distributors,  manufacturers, and packagers of the drugs.   They would have hospitals, clinics, and doctors as new clients.  They would have jobs, their income would be taxed, the quality of the drugs could be controlled, the shootings and killings would stop, dog fighting would end, and the merchants would no longer be sent to prison.  They would find that studying marketing, agriculture, public relations, other business-related fields, and perhaps even horticulture and botany would improve their abilities to make a living and they would find a reason to go back to school. Each one is an admirable goal. 

Two problems exist.  Without term limits, the number one job of politicians is to get re-elected.  Holding onto their jobs comes first, before stopping the crime, reducing the incarceration rate, stopping the dog fighting, creating jobs and dignity, generating revenue, and saving American lives overseas.  Any politician who would favor legalization faces a potential voter rejection, and certainly the hypocritical condemnation of an election opponent.   Second, drug prevention and rehabilitation is itself a huge industry.  The hundreds employed directly or indirectly at the Juvenile Courts Building is just the beginning.  As the largest source of criminal prosecution, criminal defense lawyers, prosecutors, guardians, psychologists, intervention counselors, and public defenders rely on the drug trade for a large fraction of their employment.  Illinois politics is driven by the trial lawyers and unions.  The trial lawyers, specifically the criminal defense lawyers, would provide campaign cash for candidates against legalization, alluding, of course, to their unselfish concern for the imminent destruction of society.  Living in their million dollar homes far distant from the inner city, what do they care about another couple gang murders?  The prison system itself employs hundreds of thousands.  With the prison population reduced substantially, these people, too, would become unemployed.  In many towns in America, the local prison is the largest source of jobs.

Legalization in Illinois should be the first step.  Despite its many benefits, those two forces will conspire together and legalization will never happen.  Unless we demand it.