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I am not as against the WOD as you are in that post, though I think we have NO compelling reason to continue to enforce penalties on pot. I would vote to legalize it.

But that is the only one. We have to try to discourage and reduce the availability, and most important, the respectability, of hard drugs.

Meth, crack, crank, herion... those drugs are too devastating to be legitimized. Meth cannot be "tried". I firmly believe that. Right now, adults with any sense of being law abiding don't use them, because they aren't around them, and they aren't around them mostly because they are illegal and carry a heavy stigma. That stigma would dissipate with legalizaton. If they were being used at the next table at the local bar, would more people who are more willing to try it, particularly the young, get sucked down the pipe? - I think so.

Right now those drugs take some, those who are comfortable with both breaking the law and taking personal risks. I want to keep it that way.

Understood.

I certainly don't think that drugs are a good thing. I don't know where I'd draw the line. I wouldn't start doing heroin just because is was suddenly legal, but maybe that's just me. Criminalizing pot is just dumb. The harder stuff is a tougher call, I'll admit.

The money is in coke and (by association) crack. The other stuff is really peripheral. I'm guessing that if coke were available legally, crack would disappear. Crack was invented as a cheaper and more potent way to deliver cocaine.

What keeps coming back to me though, is that the genie is already out of the bottle. Drugs are already everywhere. They've already been invented and enforcement is largely ineffective. It's like trying to eliminate violence by outlawing weapons. Too late for that. Drug abuse is a medical problem, not a legal problem, and we're using the wrong tool.

That stigma would dissipate with legalizaton.

Why do you think that? Are you tempted to go eat rat poisoning now? It's legal, yet you don't do it. Why?