Barring a national consensus, beginning with the National Conference of State Legislators up to the federal government, legalization is unlikely, and the War on Drugs will remain official policy, despite wide recognition of it as a failure. The flipside of keeping narcotics illegal however, the argument from experience goes, only makes gangsters and criminals rich. Similiar to lotteries, which at one time were run by organized crime and known as "numbers rackets," now state governments control them and reap the profits. | Barring a national consensus, beginning with the National Conference of State Legislators up to the federal government, legalization is unlikely, and the War on Drugs will remain official policy, despite wide recognition of it as a failure. The flipside of keeping narcotics illegal however, the argument from experience goes, only makes gangsters and criminals rich. Similiar to lotteries, which at one time were run by organized crime and known as "numbers rackets," now state governments control them and reap the profits. |