The opposite position is based on the false belief that drugs won't get millions of people killed if they are legalized. Since I firmly believe that total legalization of all drugs will eventually kill more people per year than World War II, (It will take awhile to get that bad) I can't think of why we wouldn't want to use the Iron Fist of government on it. If a government won't protect it's citizens, it won't be a government long.
I point your attention to China where they did legalize drugs, and they Did collapse the government. That government had lasted for over three thousand years, but after 70 years of legalized Opium it came crashing down. The Replacement government came crashing down too.
Do you know what took it's place? A Dictatorship. Mao solved China's drug problem by executing anyone caught with drugs.
Not a good road to travel I assure you.
The history of China isn’t that simple. China already had a weak government when Great Britain started selling opium to them. When the weak government of China tried to outlaw opium, the British invaded and destroyed them. It was decade after decade of being crapped on by the British and then the Japanese that gave rise to the communist.
Also, up until 1914 recreational drugs were completely legal in the US and it didn’t destroy the country. Back then we believed in something called “personal responsibility” instead of relying on the iron fist of government. Just how many freedoms are you willing to give up to ensure your neighbor doesn’t smoke a joint and watch cartoons?
BTW, the WOD was started when southern Democrats needed a way to imprison blacks on their prison-plantations, so they made up the story that black men were smoking cocaine and raping white women. That wasn’t true, of course, but Woodrow Wilson, a known racist, jumped on it as a way to force his idea of morality on the nation. That law was eventually declared unconstitutional but a different version was passed under another socialist, FDR, and the courts were afraid of his so they let it go.