Selling My Books on the Streets of Brooklyn 10/26

Political Man stopped by the floating bookshop today, as usual excoriating Republicans. Minutes later he was telling me he spends $500 a month on pot, which he has been smoking since 1962. I wonder if he wants the cost covered under Medicare. I've probably done less drugs than 99.5% of the public. I worry when I take Ibuprofen two days in a row. It's just not my personality to be cavalier with health. Many of my friends have dabbled, almost all recreationally. Some still do. People will do them, as they will drink alcohol. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to make them all legal rather than fight the war on drugs, which seems so hopeless. I suppose the number of addicts would increase and treatment would have to be provided for those who wished to kick the habit. Would it be more cost effective in the long run? If drugs were legal, would the incentive of the traffickers and dealers be wiped out? The new providers would have to sell the products at a lower rate, and government would have to refrain from taxing them, otherwise we'd have the same fiasco we now have with cigarettes. Of course, there is also the moral and psychological question. Would legalization seem like a surrender to the dark side and, consequently, erode the psyche of the nation? It didn't happen with the repeal of prohibition. Many would argue that it has happened in the wake of the permissiveness of the '60's, which led to Roe vs. Wade. Our culture has certainly coarsened, if that's any evidence, although some would say it has simply grown more honest. Like all great questions, this one could be argued to death.
Thank you to the Russian woman who spotted the Danielle Steele translation as I was setting up shop, and to William, local security guard, who purchased a Tony Robbins motivational DVD; and the young woman who bought The Fat-Burning Workout, who must have been thinking of the distant future, as she was positively svelte; and to teenage male who bought Patricia Cornwell's Book of the Dead.
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