When you legalize drugs be prepared to support user habits with your taxes.
We have been supporting users' habits via taxation since prohibition. Weak people with bad habits should not be turned into criminals any more than cigarette smokers should be demonized.
We have been funding addicts via Social Security Disability, and providing shelter to drug dealers via welfare for many years. And for years we have been funding the "drug wars" industry under the guise that it will solve the "drug problems" that have existed with man since the beginning of time.
Our taxes go to funding "drug wars" that only erode innocent citizens constitutional rights, and places them in harm's way. So far, the "drug wars" have alienated non-violent taxpaying citizens via incarceration, and feeds a court system that cannot even begin to contain its most violent criminals. Supporting "drug wars" only exacerbates the problem, and further legitimizes the "police state" mentality that goes with it.
It's a no win situation. You legalize drugs, you support a user's habits. You support a drug war, you not only support a user's habits, you perpetuate the industry that feeds it.
How many tobacco smokers are getting cigarettes at taxpayers'expense? And how many people am I buying drinks for? Please either post or tell me where to find the stats on this. I had not been aware of it.