re: Would drug legalization increase the frequency of overdoses?

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Would crack ever have become the epidemic it became if cocaine was legal, and not so expensive?

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From what I can tell all of your links are by drug supporters. No credibility.

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In 1900, between 2 percent and 5 percent of the entire adult population of the United States were addicted to drugs. The average drug user was a rural middle-aged white woman who used morphine-based patent medicines. The murder rate in 1900 was 1.2 per 100,000 people. But that all changed as America went through one of its periodic bouts of Puritanism.

In 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Narcotic Act that essentially banned the non-medical sale of opiates and cocaine derivatives. The murder rate the year after was 5.9 per 100,000. Then came the 18th Amendment in 1920, outlawing the sale of all alcoholic beverages. In 1921, the murder rate in America jumped to 8.1 per 100,000. Of course, the 1920s were the era of gangsters and bootleggers.

In 1933, America came back to its senses, or at least decided that the millions of unemployed during the Depression might need a good stiff drink now and then, and passed the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition. The murder rate that year reached 9.7 per 100,000. After Prohibition, the murder rate began to drift downward, dropping to 4.5 per 100,000 in 1958. Meanwhile, organized crime, jumpstarted by black markets for booze, had expanded their businesses into other black markets like gambling and prostitution, and, of course, still-banned drugs like opiates, cocaine, and marijuana.

By 1970, when Congress passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, the murder rate had risen back to 8.3 per 100,000. In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared that drugs were the "No. 1 Public Enemy" and announced the beginning of a new "War on Drugs." In 1973, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was established. As the Drug War heated up, the murder rate reached an all-time high of 10.7 per 100,000 in 1980.

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Albany.edu?

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Interesting. I guess facts mean nothing if you don't like the source citing them. Does it change the actual facts?

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Posted by GeauxxxTigers23 I don't know if violent crime would increase if you took out the black market but other crimes would. Theft in particular. There would be more addicts and those addicts would need to feed their habit.

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As the Drug War heated up, the murder rate reached an all-time high of 10.7 per 100,000 in 1980.

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The premise is flawed so far. Legal mj has increased in price.

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