LOL. I swear that last sentence is so badly thought out that I could almost believe that the author is secretly for legalization and that this entire article is an attempt to point out the absurdity in prohibitionist arguments. The author says, yes its true "alcohol is a factor in half of all murders, sexual assaults, robberies, and violent crimes this is actually rather benign compared to drugs". Hmmmm. Even if drugs were a factor in ALL "murders, sexual assaults, robberies, and violent crimes" it would not make his previously quoted statistic "benign". As for tobacco, the CDC has said that it kills more people than AIDS, murder, suicide, fires, alcohol and all illegal drugs COMBINED.( Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC, May 23, 1997)
Even though 400,000 babies are born every year to some sort of disability because of irresponsible, drunken mothers, drugs are still worse. For example, mothers who smoke marijuana give their babies a 500 percent greater chance of developing disabilites and eleven times greater chance of getting leukemia over mothers who drink alcohol while pregnant.
Meaningless statistic, try comparing marijuana to tobacco since they have similar delivery systems. Smoking tobacco during pregnancy is estimated to account for 20 to 30 percent of low-birth weight babies, up to 14 percent of preterm deliveries, and some 10 percent of all infant deaths.
Cocaine is addictive to 75 percent of first-time users. Compare this to alcohol, which is addictive to 10 percent of first-time users.
Meaningless statistic, alcohol is tried by many more people so it only makes sense that a smaller PERCENTAGE of people would become addicted to it, however the actual number of alcohol addicts would be much, much larger than cocaine addicts.
Although tobacco contributes to roughly 400,000 deaths per year, marijuana is much more carcinogenic than tobacco, which means it supresses the human immune system in a more fatally powerful way.
This joker doesn't even know what "carcinogenic" means. A carcinogen is something that promotes abonormal cell growth(namely cancer). Do we really need to argue about which substance, marijuana or tobacco, kills more people with cancer every year?
Therefore, while it is true that alcohol and tobacco are unkind products, to argue that drugs ought to be legalized because alcohol and tobacco are legal completely ignores the vast differences in harm between the legal and illegal.
There is no bright dividing line between what drugs are legal and which aren't. The only reason tobacco and alcohol are legal today and marijuana isn't is because there are enough alcohol drinkers and tobacco smokers to make their prohibition politically impractical. BTW, no one I know is arguing that "drugs ought to be legalized because alcohol and tobacco are legal", we're merely pointing out the absurdity of treating them differently. The "because" of drug legalization is that its not the government's job to protect us from ourselves but only to protect our rights.
And something I like to inject into every WOD thread that I'd like an answer to from a prohibitionist that considers himself a constitutionalist: If it took the 18th amendment to the Constitution to ban alcohol in 1919 then why is no such amendment necessary to ban other drugs today?