[GalvestonBeachcomber]

Drug usage in the U.S. could be controlled in short order by adoption and enforcement of draconian laws. Singapore has no drug problems.

Short the willingness to do what is neccessary to stop drug usage, all the rest is hot air. The war on drugs, treatment centers, etc. are only bottomless pits for blfeeding hearts to toss taxpayer money.

[DaveCooper]

Moreover, enacting drug legalization would fail to send the salient message to our youth that indulging in drugs is morally wrong,

It is? Since when?

Every morning I drink two or more cups of coffee. Guess I'll have some explaining to do to my Maker...

[Frances_Marion]

Just pump more money into the W.O.D. Just throw more money at the problem, that'll solve it. Hey, waitaminute, that sounds like another certain party...

[The Green Goblin]

...social Conservatives in particular are not purists regarding government intervention, especially when they perceive a threat to the greater good of the citizenry.

Yeah, social conservatives have never given a rat's ass about the Constitution.

[Protagoras]

And of course, as a compassionate society, we would offer rehabilitation for those substance users who seek help in kicking their drug habits, a minor price to pay in the scheme of things.

He was going along pretty well til he told this fib.

[Protagoras]

But beyond the question of drug legalization, we as a society must make it a priority to inculcate values in our youth, and help them build character,

One good way to do that would be to continue to lie to them like the author does in this piece. It always helps to build character and inculcate values in young people when they find out that the people they are learning from are liars.

"Reefer Madness" did wonders for the credibility of the authorities.

[cruiserman]

Or, in other words, we know what's best for you.

[wardaddy]

The number of folks on this forum who advocate drug legalization astounds me. I agree that decriminalizing marijuana to a large degree is reasonable but having a legal free open market on any intoxicant one wishes is just plain foolish. The problem with the drug war is that true enough, it's more ineffective than we would like it to be and some of the sentencing (Federal) and confiscatory statutes are draconian but the proposed alternative is scarier....at least to me. As much as I hate to admit it, and this sounds like liberal tripe.....the social and cultural issues leading to drug use and abuse are the real issue. Problem is...those are long term perhaps unresolvable problems and we are left with no choice but some kind of prohibition.

I would agree with some of the Randian/Objectivist/Libertarian crowd on the particular issues surrounding property confiscation and mandatory sentencing and gun enhancements. I do NOT think the drug war is puposely racist but it's certainly easy for anti-WOD folks to make that argument when they base their argument strictly on arrests and convictions. Again, the underlying social and cultural predispositions come into play. It's quite a complicated issue and has acquired an inter-generational life of it's own. Restoring some type of moral fabric back into our culture and society will cure exponentially more than the WOD. I know....Libertarians want drug legalization but abhor the societal morality issue....LOL.

[sheltonmac]

Two points:

1. The prohibition of alcohol, a substance arguably more problematic than illicit drugs, was a miserable failure.
2. Repeal federal drug laws and turn the issue of legalization over to the states where it belongs.

[Sicon]

"Libertarians Advocate Drug Legalization: Recipe For Escalating Societal Decay"

Yeah, as if mandatory sentencing, no-knock raids, and the incarceration of millions upon millions of non-violent "criminals" is a recipe for societal health?

Give me a break. The Puritans had their time in the sun about two hundred years ago. The WOD is not just a recipe for societal decay, it is an abomination, making convicts out of people whose only crime was that they chose to do something that others don't think they should do.

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

Legalization of drugs would increase substance abuse, especially among youth, and would cause social pathologies to flourish to an even greater extent than they are flourishing now.

Bottom line end of story. This is why I oppose changing our laws concerning illegal drugs.

[Thumper1960]

The one question that has dogged me for years is this: If drugs are so bad and will lead this country to Hell, with a chorus of demons serenading us......why is it that the US was decidedly more free and so very dynamic in the days when "drugs" were legal and Coke had cocaine? I'm talking about up to 80 years or so ago.

Is it really just a popular sentiment, encouraged by the successors to the teetotaling temperance bitty's, that has driven this issue to annoyance?

It seems likely.

[LibertyRocks]

Non-violent drug abusers need treatment, not jail and a criminal record.
Violent criminals (i.e. Drug dealers who also: Steal, Murder, Assault, etc...) already have laws on the books that put them in jail. If there were less non-violent offenders, they wouldn't be back on the street in just a few years, either...

[Don Myers]

We have enough drugs polluting our society now, and the Libertarians want to legalize everything. Dumb.

[apochromat]

Since you don't want to be at all specific about your drugs, would you disagree with the idea of replacing various chemical tests with a single uniform performance test?

[apochromat]

I note that your essay treats a soft drug more harshly and misleadingly than it does hard drugs. All in all, a very good ad for the hard drug alcohol industry.

[jimt]

Noteworthy, the marijuana of today is many times more potent than the marijuana available in the 1960's and the 1970's. It is more addictive, and more debilitating than the older versions of the substance, and now often requires intensive treatment for recovery.

These two blatant lies throw every other statement made by the author into doubt.

The weed of the '60s and '70s was every bit as good, if not better, than anything sold today. It was easy to smuggle, there were few people trying to interdict it, and outstanding quality was readily available. This "more potent" crap is a myth invented by the drug warriors to justify their JBT tactics and the rape of our civil liberties.

The second lie is the "addictive" nature of marijuana. There has never been a credible study showing it to be physically addictive. EVER ! There was one study conducted that showed it to be toxic, though. When they fed cats 2 to 4 OUNCES of HASHISH per kilogram of body weight, the cats died. The fact that this would be equivalent to a normal man eating 14-1/2 POUNDS of hashish never seemed to dawn on them. Anybody with any experience regarding marijuana would find this utterly ridiculous - a regular, heavy user could smoke an ounce of hashish in a month. Eating 14-1/2 pounds is about as likely as unassisted space travel.

The weak sisters who claim psychological addiction are those wimps who are always looking for someone else to be at fault, and who won't take responsibility for their actions.

The LP's position on drugs is correct. While the author does accurately state the LP position in her first two paragraphs, her refutation contains unproven opinions and some blatant falsehoods, like the two above.

[Barnacle]

We have a choice. Legalize drugs or make drug dealing a capital offense.

But, sitting on the fence as we have will only perpetuate the mistakes of the past and optimize drug dealer’s profits.

[Demidog]

In truth, there would be increases in both drug activity and concomitant social ills and other antisocial behaviors linked to substance abuse, all of which would have a profoundly deleterious effect on our populace.

Totally unsupported nonsense.

[apochromat]

I can't think of anything much more corrosive on societal order than sanctioning cruel punishment based on arbitrary rules. It's one thing to be concerned about public intoxication, and quite a different thing to violently attack a cultivation practice widely enjoyed when our nation's Constitution was written, without even so much as a constitutional amendment to be thown in as a flimsy excuse for the idiocy of the effort. Perhaps I have understated the severity of all that.