I'm not convinced by the claimes underlined above.
The first web site I found with drug use figures (the home page looks pro-marijuana to me), gives figures of 62 million tobacco users, 111 alcohol users, under 1.8 million cocaine users, 0.6 million heroin users, and 9.9 million marijuana users (a figure several times higher than a government site I also found provides). The disparity in the number of users between marijuana (the most innocuous of the illegal substances) and alcohol (comparable in effect) and tobacco (similar in delivery) suggests that illegality does suppress the use of these substances. And while a six-fold increase in marijuana use (to match tobacco use rates) might not be the end of the world, a six-fold increase in the use of heroin or crack could be. People believe that illegality suppresses use and there is some evidence that it does, so simply claiming that it doesn't is not convincing. Not to me, anyway.
That Rush Limbaugh and other people caught taking illegal drugs are often forced into rehabilitation programs suggests that they do force some people to quit. I'd agree that rehabilitation, rather than jail, should be the focus of anti-drug laws, but would Rush Limbaugh be seeking help for his pain killer addiction if he could buy them over the counter at CVS?
Legalization of drugs and the taxiation thereof demanded by a rational populace, would create no noticable increase in the use of drugs, while not only removing the burden of the WOD from the back of tax-payers but would actually become a source of revenue for the government, while returning drug pushers and drug lords, back to the penny ante pursuit of being the mugging and scam artists they were before the government set out to convince them that crime pays.
See above. Can you prove the underlined statement?
As for organized crime and tax revenue, that's the cost that people are balancing against the cost of increased use. No doubt that's a problem. And I do not doubt that no-knock raids and asset siezure are also a problem.