I don’t waste my time thinking about “victims” who have no remote relation to me, my family, or immediate community.
Being sold on the concept of intimately worrying about what happens to people whom you’ll never meet or know is the number one way government sells you on more BS. Sure, bad things happen to good people, and it sucks, but I’m not about to give away any of my freedom, or anyone elses freedom over some nebulous promise that it’s going to prevent something from happening to a few out of 280,000,000 fellow citizens.
Now, I’ll grant you that in general I’ve always been pretty against decriminalizing or legalizing most drugs, but purely from the standpoint of the fact that the government won’t give me or others more leeway in physically defending myself from the irresponsible users and will absolutely want us to step up and provide all means of care for the irresponsible users.
That said, I won’t agree to an arguement that begs sympathy for hypotheticals or possibilities. The exact same arguement, if allowed success, can be repeatedly utilized to further subjugate the Republic.
You’ve got to see that. You could go on and on about people losing loved ones early from eating trans fat, or smoking, or driving faster than 25 miles per hour. It’s just not a viable angle to defend your point.
As an aside, making industrial Hemp legal to grow is an entirely separate issue from smokeable “dope”. Industrial Hemp is about as effective at getting one high as lawn clippings...
It is apparent you are working with some false assumptions. In 1992, 132,000 people died as a result of alcohol/drug abuse. I don't think that constitutes a “few” fellow citizens being victims of drug and alcohol abuse. Some of those 132,000 may have been victims of their own indulgence; however, I willing to wager that the majority of them were innocent victims killed in accidents or as the result of violence commited upon them.
In 1995, the economic costs to our country of alcohol and drug abuse were over $300 billion. After you've read the analysis at the link above, please justify why legalization of marijuana constitutes good public policy. I submit you won't because you can't.