Quote:The ultimate question is, is it more cost-effective to deal with drug addicts when they commit other crimes, to fill up our jails with them, or to try to prevent them becoming drug addicts in the first place?   That's the question that has to be answered.   And that's what I was saying in the first place.   If we want to end the war on drugs, we will have to deal with additional drug addicts.   Throw them in jail?   Put them in treatment programs?   Educate our children about the dangers of drugs?   When you remove a barrier to taking drugs- the fact that they are illegal- then you will have additional drug addicts and you will have to deal with them somehow.  

 

What I am trying to say is, ending the war on drugs doesn't just have benefits.   It has costs as well.  

Yeah, cause the war on drugs is doing a great job at stopping them from becoming addicts.  Right now we're jailing not just drug addicts, but people who use drugs responsibly as well.  We already jail people who do other crimes, regardless of if they were on drugs (or alcohol for that matter, and we don't ban alcohol).  We also already educate people on the danger of drugs.  


The 'legal' barrier doesn't really matter much.  People who want to get high, are going to get high.  Heck, people get high off of every day stuff when they can't get drugs.  They get high off of Nutmeg.  


I also have to question how you can encourage responsible use, when it's against the law to do it in the first place. Responsible use is something we should be teaching.


Also how likely are people with problems to get help, when the drug is illegal and they hide the fact from most people who would actually try to get them help because it's illegal?


And some of these drugs were legal at some point.  Yet, we didn't have a major problem then.  

---