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This all changed for me a few months ago after I allowed myself to get past Milton Friedman's seemly absurd premise of the advantage of decriminalizing drug abuse. Once I listened to his reasoning I had a hard time arguing with him. After kicking the tires of these ideas around in my own mind, I concluded, like Friedman, that criminalizing drug abuse has done and is doing more harm than good.

Seems to be one of those counter-intuitive things that maybe a society has to learn through the experience of hard knocks. Yet there is a principle at work here that when ignored seems to have negative effects on society:

a government has no right to interfere with an individual's freedom as long as he is not interfering with another's freedom.

I also find myself want to put in terms of "decriminalizing" rather than "legalizing" than drug abuse. I think it may be an important distinction simply because it's a statement of laissez-faire rather than an endorsement. Obviously, a healthy society doesn't want its members hurting themselves and can be an influence against self destruction. But not so obviously, the greater harm is in deciding to force another not to harm himself.

Amazing but true Friedman quote: "The role of the government is to protect the drug cartel." He also incisively explains how it is utterly immoral for "our" government to make a criminal out of someone and ruin his life in prison because he's caught carrying or smoking marijuana. The negatives of this kind of government intrusion and coercion far outweigh the positives.

Milton Friedman - short YouTube clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-zeni0G1O0

Milton Friedman - longer (but good) YouTube clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QULAf1wZNhs&feature=related