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Jesus said regarding people, "By their fruits you shall know them." I think this can be applied to policies as well as to people. What are the fruits of the "war on drugs"? The same as the fruits of prohibition: 1. The financing of criminal (and in today's case terrorist) empires; 2. The criminalization of otherwise (possibly) innocent people; and 3. The corruption on a broad scale of significant chunks of law enforcement and government entities. Why do we have laws against drugs? Because most of us recognize that their use is often destructive. This recognition should be used to attack drug use via societal conventions and the option to withhold priveleges rather than via the legal/criminal system. Drug use (except regarding use by or sale to minors) should be removed from the criminal arena provided that there is a guaranteed right of any organization or individual, government or otherwise, to discriminate against users for any reason. You want a job here? Drug test. You want a driver's license or insurance? Drug test. You want a loan or a credit card? Drug test. Most prudent people recognize that a drug user will be a poorer risk and should be discriminated against in these areas if only by paying higher premiums or interest rates. Removing this from the criminal arena means that people will not be incriminating themselves in a criminal case and allows them to get what they want only after staying clean long enough to provide a clean sample for the drug test. Of course we should still keep criminal penalties for driving under the influence or committing any other felony under the influence, much like the laws that penalize a felon more for carrying a gun even if it's not used. The whole point of this approach is that it attacks the demand side of the equation. Doing this via the criminal approach would result in a police state which none of us want. I think more people would favor legalization if they were allowed to use more effective weapons against drug use. It should be obvious that the current laws don't have a deterrent effect on people intent on using drugs. There are plenty of "casual" or "recreational" users who would quit rather than lose job, driver's license, insurance, etc. I saw it happen in my workplace. I work at a chemical plant where we handle millions of pounds of hazardous materials every year. A significant percentage of the salaried professional degreed people I worked with fell into the casual or recreational drug user group when I started working there, but when drug testing was finally initiated, very few were fired for it because they recognized a good reason to quit and they just quit.