[JamesP81]

For the longest time, I was against drug decriminilization. I've catigated Libertarians about being obsessed with drug legalization more than once.

Now, I'm no longer sure that legalization is a bad idea. Obviously, laws against driving under the influence and similar laws would remain, but I'm no longer convinced society is well served by imprisoning someone who uses drugs in their own home where they aren't messing with someone else while doing it.

I think that programs like those put on by churches, DARE, and the like have done far more to reduce drug use than any amount of enforcement ever did. And our enforcement procedures are making the cops look and act more like military forces or JBTs everyday. I fear where this road leads far more than some guy next door smoking himself to death with crack. If that sounds heartless, then I'm sorry, but that's how it is.

[rhombus]

I think that programs like those put on by churches, DARE, and the like have done far more to reduce drug use than any amount of enforcement ever did.

I certainly agree that enforcement has been a joke on level with some of the weirder global warming proposals. However, I'm not a big fan of project DARE. When my son was in first grade he called me a drug user for having a beer. Of course he was right but the point was the program was aimed at children too young and still in the black and white concrete operational stage to understand what they were being told. By middle school my son and his friends were making up all sorts of outrageous drug experiences just to entertain the DARE instructors in their "group therapy" sessions. I wish he's spent all that time learning how to read and write better instead of wasting school time with project DARE.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

For the longest time, I was against drug decriminilization. I've catigated Libertarians about being obsessed with drug legalization more than once.

Now, I'm no longer sure that legalization is a bad idea. Obviously, laws against driving under the influence and similar laws would remain, but I'm no longer convinced society is well served by imprisoning someone who uses drugs in their own home where they aren't messing with someone else while doing it.

A quality post. We need more people like you to weigh in on the subject.

[patton]

Last study I saw concluded that kids who had attended DARE are more likely to use drugs.

Don't mistake that result for causality, though - it could be that neighborhoods with an extant drug problem are more likely to use the DARE program, thus self-selecting for abusive tendencies.

In any case, there is no evidence that DARE works at all.

[Eric Blair 2084]

For the longest time, I was against drug decriminilization. I've catigated Libertarians about being obsessed with drug legalization more than once.

Now, I'm no longer sure that legalization is a bad idea. __________________________________________________________

These Libertarian pings are really entertaining.

If my idol Milton Friedman was against the "War on Drugs", that's enough to interest me.

Thankfully, the only drugs that agree with me (alcohol and nicotine) are still legal.

I'm reading and learning here.

[sig226]

This is the one thing that Reagen did that absolutely drove me nuts. Did he not remember prohibition? Advocating against drug use is all well and good, but we ended up with cash transaction reporting, asset forfeiture, gun bans, and now this. This is far from the first time this has happened.

With legalization government would save trillions. Think of the money spent on enforcement, prosecution, and incarceration. The potheads are still smoking pot and the crack heads are still smoking crack. A simple excise tax on the dope could fund efforts to rehabilitate addicts, but honestly, if a man wants to spend his nights passed out on a sidewalk somewhere, I can step over him. If he wants to go home after a hard day's work and smoke a joint, I don't care.

One thing is certain from an understanding of basic economics - the rate of violent crime would plummet since there would be no drug gangs and addicts wouldn't have to turn to street crime to pay for their stuff.