Just curious, would you be okay with legalizing other drugs?
Give the issue back to the doctors, where it belongs.
Honestly, I am quite ambivalent about that.
Philosophically, I think, for the Federal Government at least, the prohibition of drugs is an inadvisable expansion of government power. The true efficacy of the WOD and the negative influences it has had on the practice of law enforcement are serious questions that should be addressed.
That being said, it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge that harder drugs do present greater possibility for abuse and that they DO contribute to great human misery through their abuse.
I'm not sure the numbers of people who do cocaine, meth, heroin, etc will change by more than a few percentage points if they were legalized, but I don't know that I would want to make that bet.
What I do believe pretty strongly is that marijuana, while most certainly not harmless, is relatively benign as far as intoxicants go. In an era of shrinking resources, I would be happier if government focused it resources on the drugs that are people are misusing to far more deleterious effect.
I would also like to see most of the silly hyperbole removed from this debate.