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“Marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol. If you support the legalized sale of alcohol, libertarian or not, you have no grounds to criminalize marijuana. “

The problem I’ve had with all of it is the enormous cost to us for the so-called “war on drugs.” Government should butt out of the crazy, unlawful raids and such where innocent people die, and they should also be out of the “help” business for people who abuse either alcohol or drugs. That will leave us folks with having to deal with whatever transpires as a result, but all of it has been a huge waste of effort apart from what is done to stop the entry of hard drugs into this country. People who abuse drugs and alcohol should be on their own, because only then will they come to the realization of how tragic these two intoxicants are.
I deal with “the homeless” here in CA in connection with commercial property. It is a huge problem, but in watching people on security cameras for the best part of a year, I have only seen one instance where it appeared that drugs were being used, and it wasn’t MJ, it was “injectables!” And I can also say that the people we have the cops remove are nearly all white, young, and well-dressed for the most part. We have had to eliminate outside electrical outlets because they are used to charge up personal electronics, and now with winter arriving, electric blankets. They appear to just be a bunch of aimless people wandering around with backpacks.

The problem I’ve had with all of it is the enormous cost to us for the so-called “war on drugs.”

Fair enough. But before you tip the scale on that side, you have to balance it by what it cost China to NOT have a war on drugs.

China lost at least 100 million people from the consequences of out of control Opium addiction. All the disaster that befell China with their civil war, and the Japanese occupation, the rapes, the murders, the poverty, all of that can be laid at the feet of the legalization of Drugs after the Opium war in 1842.

Legalized drugs effectively killed China. They are only now recovering from the effects of their loss of population and the consequences of their communist dictator.

Believe me, the piddly costs of our drug war pale in comparison to what we would be losing from not having one.

The problem I’ve had with all of it is the enormous cost to us for the so-called “war on drugs.”

I agree with everything you said, and I'd also add to the cost of the "war on drugs", the violence. I believe you would see a 50% or greater drop in gun violence within five years of complete legalization. The gang warfare we see in large cities is no different than the gang warfare we saw during prohibition.

That being said, I believe marijuana to be a different animal from the other drugs. Overdoses, addiction, and violence make legalizing harder drugs an honest question in the equation of societal good. Do we trade a reduction in gang violence for an increase in the above mentioned. Marijuana generally is not associated with these issues.