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    <title>Substance legalization</title>
    <link>http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog_rss/substancelegalization/html</link>
    <description>Tell me what you think about legalizing drugs, particularly marijuana. What are the pros? What are the cons? How much of a priority should this be on president obama&#039;s agenda?</description>
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            <title>My Take</title>
            <description>&lt;p&gt;I believe that as Americans, we should have the right to put in our own bodies what we will. &amp;nbsp;It is clear that the war on drugs has failed us greatly. &amp;nbsp;In this year already, we have spent over 12,000,000,000 dollars on the war against drugs with that number climbing in the tens of thousands with every few letters I type. &amp;nbsp;This nonsense needs to end. &amp;nbsp;By legalizing drugs, we could control them like we do any legal substance (alcohol, tobacco) today. &amp;nbsp;We restrict their sales to people above a certain age, and we tax them. &amp;nbsp;This would not only create money (and possibly jobs depending on how these substances were distributed/cultivated/dispensed), but it would mean that we would stop spending billions of dollars a year to feed a useless, highly destructive war. &amp;nbsp;The current laws that control these substances are responsible for a few highly negative things: not only are we wasting billions of dollars in taxes, police/law enforcement funds, etc, but we are putting our money in the hands of criminals. &amp;nbsp;Criminal organizations feed off of drug money, which the US government is essentially handing them given our current regulations. &amp;nbsp;If substances were regulated y the government, rather than these criminal organizations, those organizations would be much less powerful. &amp;nbsp;In addition to this, our law enforcement officers could spend much, much, much more time dealing with things of more importance. &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;</description>
            <link>http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/substancelegalization/gGxx3g</link>
            <comments>http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/substancelegalization/gGxx3g/commentary#comments</comments>
            <pubDate>Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:52:57 EDT</pubDate>
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            <dc:creator>DMB4LIFE</dc:creator>
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