[F.J. Mitchell]

Until all drugs are legalized, sold over the counter and taxed, they will always be a source of great profits that make billionaires of drug lords, criminals of users and paupers of law abiding tax-payers who pay for the whole damn stupid thing.

Being illegal, doesn't make drug usage less prevalent, but instead makes providing drugs to the users extremely profitable for those who deliver them, while driving users into all kinds of crimes to earn the cost of their habit.

THe war on drugs is the best thing that ever happened to organized crime. The Dons of Drugdom wake up in a cold sweat after a nightmare that drugs have been legalized and taxed, and the taxes are funding education of non-users, treatment of users and for searching their vile asses down and putting them away forever.

[Question_Assumptions]

Being illegal, doesn't make drug usage less prevalent, but instead makes providing drugs to the users extremely profitable for those who deliver them, while driving users into all kinds of crimes to earn the cost of their habit.

I disagree with the first assertion. While Prohibition certainly fed organized crime, the evidence from alcohol related disease and death figures suggest that it did, indeed, make alcohol use less prevalent. And I have every reason to believe that anti-drug laws do the same thing.

As for the crime committed by drug users, you need to account for the fact that many drugs render the addict unable to hold down a regular job and sometimes even more profoundly unable to take care of themselves. Needing $1 or $100 is similarly problematic for someone with no job and no money.

THe war on drugs is the best thing that ever happened to organized crime. The Dons of Drugdom wake up in a cold sweat after a nightmare that drugs have been legalized and taxed, and the taxes are funding education of non-users, treatment of users and for searching their vile asses down and putting them away forever.

That illegal drugs feed organized crime is beyond question. That's not the problem. The problem is that most people do not believe that making drugs legal will not increase their use and most people do not believe that the expected increase in use will be relatively harmless.