Well, maybe we could find a point of agreement if, instead of saying drug abuse should be illegal, I said drug abuse that endangers others lives, health, or property should be illegal.
When we arrest someone for driving drunk, we do so BEFORE they harm anyone, at least often. When we deny custody to a parent with a meth habit, we are doing so BEFORE they do harm to their child. When we forbid a pilot to drink before flying, we are again trying preemptively to stop him from endangering others.
By doing the above preemptive actions, we are presuming that a person under the influence of (name your poison) is not competent and/or physically capable of performing at normal adult capacity.
I am afraid, if (name your poison) is legalized, parents could continue to care for dependents, people could continue to perform in any number of jobs, drive, etc., teachers could extol the benefits of (name your poison), more people would use and be trying to get away with not getting caught endangering others. -
all because it’s legal.
Those are the unintended consequences of legalization.
“When the so-called Dutch “coffee shops,” started selling marijuana in small quantities, use of the drug more than doubled between 1984 and 1996 among 18 to 25 year olds.
“In 1997, there was a 25 percent increase in the number of registered cannabis addicts receiving treatment, as compared to a mere 3 percent rise in cases of alcohol abuse.”
Moreover, Dutch tolerance of drug use has created a climate that drug manufacturers and traffickers have seized upon to produce and market more addictive and dangerous drugs. For example, Peter Reijnders, Assistant Chief Constable and Chief of the Dutch National Unit on Synthetic Drugs, recently told the 25th European Meeting of Heads of National Drug Services, that: “ . . .[T]he Netherlands is a major country as far as it concerns involvement in the production of illicit synthetic drugs.”[28]
The impact of high potency marijuana on Dutch youth has been severe. In Foreign Affairs, Dr. Ernest Bunning of the Ministry of Health, is quoted as saying:
There are young people who abuse soft drugs . . . particularly those that have high THC. The place that cannabis takes in their lives becomes so dominant they don’t have space for other important things in life. They crawl out of bed in the morning, grab a joint, don’t work, smoke another joint. They don’t know what to do with their lives. I don’t want to call it a drug problem because if I do, then we have to get into a discussion that cannabis is dangerous, that sometimes you can’t use it without doing damage to your health or your psyche. The moment we say, “There are people who have problems with soft drugs,” our critics will jump on us, so it makes it a little bit difficult for us to be objective on this matter.”
http://www.drugwatch.org/McCaffrey%20Testimony%20on%20Drug%20Legalization.htm
How about this. Endangering the lives, health and property of others should be illegal, within "common sense" parameters of acceptable risk.