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Can legalizing pot save lives?

Posted by Richard on June 25, 2011

Instapundit linked to an article arguing that legalizing pot could save thousands of lives. I've got to run and can't check it out right now, but the first thing that occurs to me is that it would bring the death rate among pot growers and distributors down to about the rate among liquor distillers and distributors.

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2 Responses to “Can legalizing pot save lives?”

  1. David Bryant said

    The article appeared in ”The Atlantic” on-line. And the basic argument is exactly what one would infer from the headline: legalizing marijuana would reduce the power and influence of the Mexican drug cartels, and the murder rate in Mexico would almost certainly decline.

    I was struck by the large number of typographical and grammatical errors in the article. It’s not very long — about 1,000 – 1,200 words — and I count no fewer than 11 such errors. Here are some of the more egregious.

    “… one could image the U.S. legalization …” {imagine}

    “Apple, for instance, get’s around 50% of it’s revenues from the iPhone.” {extraneous apostrophes}

    “Another important way cartels are similar to Apple is that there likely economies of scope …” {the word “are” is omitted}

    “… the production of their other elicit goods.” {illicit — “elicit” isn’t even an adjective}

    I have never been a huge fan of ”The Atlantic”. But it used to be a well-edited magazine. What happened? Is editing on the internet just that lax in general? Or has ”The Atlantic” been particularly hard hit by the rapid decline in magazine sales?

  2. rgcombs said

    Yeah, I finally took a look, and it’s all about the slaughter in Mexico. I stand by my point. The death rate among importers of Scotch and French wines is pretty low, too.

    And besides, marijuana has been successfully grown (illicitly) in just about any part of America you can think of. Legalization would create lots of new jobs in the U.S., dramatically reduce imports (thus weakening the cartels), and help our balance of payments, for those who worry about that. 🙂

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