[DiogenesLamp]

You cannot see the legal sewer you already occupy. You’re up to your neck in sewage and think that’s how the world is supposed to smell and nothing better is possible.

Not going in the direction you want to go. Deeper into the sewer is only likely to increase the bad smell.

This cure is literally worse than the disease.

And this is your utter delusion based on the observable fact that you have not the slightest clue as to how bad the disease can get.

You don't actually know any drug addicts, do you? You have no actual experience with dope fiends, i'll wager.

[muir_redwoods]

You keep impugning my intelligence, education and understanding and yet everything you’ve written shows an inability to understand the issues and the risks we actually face with the status quo. It is inescapable that what you favor, if extended to the deadly drug alcohol, would fail utterly and yet you cling to the notion that it will succeed with other drugs. It’s simply an absurd position with no basis in logic or experience. To you, what is the lesson of prohibition?

[muir_redwoods]

I know and have known too many drug addicts. I volunteered at the VA hospital when I was in college and worked with several amphetamine users and a few heroin addicts; all but one had served in Vietnam. The amphetamine users, to a man, claimed they were first given speed by the military, one of the heroin addicts took classes part-time at the school I attended. Their private hell didn’t come to me, I had to go looking for it to find it. Their foolish abuse of drugs made no impact on me until I decided to get involved.

I know you feel that 19th century China is a near perfect analogue for 21st century America but what do you make of this from Forbes Magazine?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/