[dinasour]

The war on drugs is portrayed as competing solutions, the drug warriors have their's, the libertarians have a different solution.

I believe the reality is that there is no solution, just a set of competing problems.

It is true that the war on drugs is itself destroying lives that would not otherwise be destroyed. On the other hand, having a crack stand at your local 7-Eleven would just destroy a different set of lives.

The situation is somewhat like the "paradox of inoculation". At some point, if a vaccine program is successful, your risk of having a side effect of the vaccine exceeds the risk actually getting the disease. But if you stop vaccinations, many more will get sick.

Likewise, if we make these extremely addictive and seductive substances easily available, even if we could restrict it to adults, would society be able to function with maybe, one third of the population stoned most of the time?

Would it really be that bad? I don't know. The only model we have in western society is alcohol and tobacco which are pretty mild compared to modern narcotics.

[mugs99]

The only model we have in western society is alcohol

Alcohol is the most dangerous drug known to man. It is responsible for more death and violence than all other drugs combined. Drug abuse is only a problem because it is stigmatized. If alcohol abuse were stigmatized the same as drugs, no one would even notice the insignificantly small numbers of drug abusers.

Other than the turf wars created by the drug war, most drug violence is alcohol related, but we are only told that the offender was on drugs, not that he was also drunk.
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