[jim_trent]

Have you bought any legal drugs lately? Do they cost "almost nothing"? Why would these drugs cost any less?

[coloradan]

Yes, aspirin costs $1.39 for a bottle of hundreds. Cocaine and meth aren't like Viagra or Prozac that requires billions of dollars of research to identify and produce ... peasants in central American countries (coke), and condo dwellers using hardware store chemicals (meth)make them by the ton all the time. And pot just about grows on trees. Tell me, do you think people would pay you $20 for a little handful of legal weed clippings?

[Windcatcher]

Sure I have. I have a co-pay, but I'm sure my Zyrtec doesn't come cheap. However, most of the cost of legal drugs is to offset the cost of developing them. Also, look at how much the price drops when patents run out and generic brands are available.

Now look at the cost of illegal drugs. They're expensive because of a lack of supply. If they were legal (which would likely result in much greater supply), prices would have to drop. They wouldn't drop to zero, but they just might drop to the point where *pushing* them is uneconomical. Certainly there would be *no* point in violence.