[stainlessbanner]

You would have to weigh which is more harmful to society: Legalization -or- War on Drugs. We know the WoD is costly, destructive, and not making much progress. Maybe we could just tax the hell out of drugs and get out of debt? Of course, insurance would go thru the roof if we legalized drugs. Just some thoughts...

[FastCoyote]

Interesting point about insurance, but legalizing drugs wouldn't legalize a train engineer high on marijuana any more than it would him running down the tracks with a case of Buds beside him. We already have close to the level of drug usage we would have after legalization, so the changes would be relatively minor and could be phased in.

I've thought of doing a spreadsheet of costs/benefits, but it would take a little thought. For example, the cost of drug enforcement includes but is not limited to: bloated police forces, extra jails, time lost from work by users in the legal system, courts, juries, lawyers, the inflated cost of drugs, deaths due to lifesaving drugs held from the market, the cost of the FDA, many etcs.

And then on the opposite side are the very real costs of drug addiction, work injuries, lost productivity, etc. I suspect, however, that the true cost of the WOD dwarfs the negative drug costs.

[LarryLied]

You would have to weigh which is more harmful to society:

Difficult to tell, isn't it? In my parent's day (Great Depression kids) and their parents day, no problem. Their could have been offered all the drugs they wanted for free and they would not have taken them. A half a century of liberal mind rot latter, I don't know how bad it might get if the more serious drugs were legal.