suggest U.S. governments could improve their budgets by at least $85 billion annually by legalizing — and taxing — all drugs. U.S. insistence that source countries outlaw drugs means increased violence and corruption there as well (think Columbia, Mexico, or Afghanistan).
This would be impossible to tax. There would still be a black market with other countries that people would use in order to evade the tax imposed by the government.
But perhaps the best reason to legalize hard drugs is that people who wish to consume them have the same liberty to determine their own well-being as those who consume alcohol, or marijuana, or anything else. In a free society, the presumption must always be that individuals, not government, get to decide what is in their own best interest.
I would agree 100% that people should be able to choose what's best for them, but not when their choices could hurt others. I can see the benefits to marijuana in a few instances, but there is no benefit for hard drugs like heroine or cocaine. All these drugs can offer people is a brief period of relief from life, but then reality sets back in and they've only hurt themselves (and possibly others).
Also, traffic fatalities are near historic lows, and slightly lower than what we saw in 2013. I'm not claiming a direct causation to marijuana legalization, but marijuana legalization certainly has not hurt Colorado.
I for sure know this isn't true because I was reading an article about how people in Colorado are getting laid off because they are failing drug tests at their jobs. State law may let people use pot, but private organizations are the ultimate decider for their employees. Marijuana may have done a lot of good for Colorado, but it also has hurt it.
Colorado also has seen an economic boost since legalization. Colorado is ranked as one of the the fastest growing economies. The unemployment rate is at its lowestsince 2008, well below the national average.
Considering the unemployment rate is at its lowest since 2008, progress in the economy has been happening quite a few years before the legalization of marijuana. I just think it's not safe to say that the legalization is the reason for the fast growing economy. There are clearly other reasons.
I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
Logos
In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church.
Pathos
thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.
metaphor
dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest
Opposites
sacred and the secular.
opposites
too few in quantity, but they are big in quality
Opposites
"rabble rousers"
alliteration