Legalize Coca & Opium, Not Just Marijuana

A serious flaw of the drug policy reform movement- limiting attention to Marijuana while acting afraid of Coca-cocaine and Opiates; from a comment at Drug War Rant that quotes this article:

"When we talk about legalizing marijuana, we inevitably have to decide what other drugs should be legalized. Do we legalize cocaine, crack, ecstasy, meth, heroin? If not, why not? Shouldn’t we legalize all drugs, regulate them and tax them like alcohol?

I’m all in on legalizing marijuana. Tax it and we can retire the deficit overnight. Smoke it in bars and coffee houses and have laws governing where it can be used.

I don’t know about the other drugs, though. We can debate it, but it seems futile to try to outlaw stuff that people want no matter the cost. At least maybe we could have a sane drug policy that recognizes reality.”

Why do we continue to hear/see such nonsense. There’s NO reason not to legalize Opium and Coca, indeed no reason they go un-mentioned- the plants and products representing them in their natural potencies at a minimum.  The prohibition ensures that we do not have Opium nor Coca, only instead the highly concentrated derrivitives of heroin and cocaine hci or sulfate- denying the safe while promoting the dangerous.  No way is that rational- except as a criminal scam of market protection - mercantilism.

Imagine an alternative reality where we made caffeine and nicoine into white powder poisons. Drug policy reform must break away from the death grip around Ira Glasser etc, like some sort of twisted advice from some cigarette-pharma conflict of interest law firm to protect pharma and cigarettes:

July 4, 2012 Seize the Day
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/06/july-4-seize-it.html

Douglas Andrew Willinger Angelo Francois Mariani Coca Activism
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/06/douglas-andrew-willinger-angelo.html

Drug War Tobacco Pharma Agricultural Mercantilism
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/03/drug-war-tobacco-pharma-agricultural.html

Drug War Criminal Mercantilism to Protect Pharma and Cigarettes
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/it-was-criminal-mercantilism-to-protect.html

Drug 'Warriors' Neglect History of Coca - Vin Coca Mariani
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-history-of-coca.html

Drug 'Warriors' Neglect Pharmacokinetics - Promote Drug Abuse
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-pharmacokinetics.html

April 1 "interview" concerning drug policy movement - pharma cigarette law firm advise program
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2012/04/about-drug-policy-covington-and-burling.html

NO discussion of the drug war should overlook the reality of it as an illegal market protection scam for cigarettes- which is obvious from that p 230 chart of cigarette production with the upturns happening with the various ‘drug control’ statutes in 1906, 1914 and 1937.

Yet we continue to see all of this ‘scholarly’ work that completely neglects this.

USDA Banned Coca to Protect Tobacco - Public Health DISASTER
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/coca-as-tobacco-habit-cure.html

By focusing upon MJ to the exclusion of Coca and Opium we have unwittingly extended prohibition. Why continue to do so?