Bruce,
With your reasoning we may as well relax the laws against all other crime as well.  Is that what this is  really about? 
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 Years ago a very liberal professor I knew said  it would be cheaper to pay a criminal $20,000 dollars a year to not commit crimes as  it cost about  $30,000 dollars a year to incarcerate so we'd be saving money!  His  logic left me astounded. To this day I  can still hear the excitement in his voice  as he attempted to convince someone far less 'educated' than he was  of something so ridiculous. To me the idea would be not much more than institutionalized  blackmail.  That idea wasn't exclusively his as others seem to   have  picked up by some in government. Our 'deals' with Korea and Iran have been based on the theory that if we can pay them enough  to 'be nice',  they will.
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  Paying extortion  doesn't  work with dictators and it won't work with drug addicts.