HAPPY BIRTHDAY GONZO!!!

[faceman802]

the only people to benefit from legalizing drugs would be the government so they can tax the shit out of it like they do cigarettes and alcohol. and if you do how are you going to distribute the drugs? prescriptions?? then insurance companies will be paying out more money to a) cover the cost of the "drug" prescriptions, like they do now with health beneficial medicines and b) payments to doctors who will have patients by the dozens or hundreds who want a marijuana perscription to alleviate their pain. If you make these OTC drugs there is going to be a large increase in shoplifting and the way retail gets money back from shoplifting is to raise retail prices on everything else.

As for legalizing drugs making them less expensive than they are now, no way. drug companies that charge 10-50 bucks a pill to create a hard-on will look to maxamize their profit as much as possible with the cost being put on the consumer and the aforementioned health insurance companies. that is if they decide to cover these drugs at all

who said anything about prescriptions? You don't need a prescription for booze or cigarettes.

And your "shoplifting" doesn't hold water becuase then the same thing would be happening with booze and cigarettes.

Prices falling is pure economics. If it were legal, the market would be flooded with competitors, the value chain's costs would be transparant, and so specialists in an industry segement would become most efficient with the cheapest price and steal all the market share. The product would be of higher quality for a cheaper price. Sure, eventually there would be consolidation like there is in any market, but there will always be competition, and prices would fall as a result.

The market would not be flooded with competitors inintially because there would be 1 or 2 companies that would get the "patent" on these drugs depending on if they did or didn't play ball with the government. No other patents would be allowed at initial offering and those companies interested would have to wait the requisite time to reapply. You are talking about what could potentially become a multi-BILLION dollar industry here. If you think this government or any government is going to let that kind of money just slip through there hands by letting every single company who wants to compete compete and driving prices down to next to nothing then you're kidding yourself.

and since when do people not steal booze????????