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I wonder how many people would die from over dosing. I suspect it would level off around 3% of the population of the U. S. That is about 7.5 million. That is just a WAG, so I could be wrong.

Yeah, a WAG all right. Make sure you wipe it off real good; considering where you pulled it from it stinks to high heaven.

Illicit drugs (all illicit drugs, combined) are responsible for fewer than 20,000 deaths per year. Compare and contrast: over 400,000 deaths per year from tobacco use, about 90,000 deaths per year from alcohol use. The latter figure includes only those who die directly from alcohol poisoning; it does not include the tens of thousands of alcohol-related deaths from motor vehicle and other accidents. Do you really think that deaths from illicit drugs will increase by a factor of 375 were they legalized? Bear in mind that a significant percentage of even the relatively minuscule number of deaths from illicit drugs are directly caused by prohibition: deaths from adulterated substances that have no legal requirements for purity, deaths from accidental overdoses caused by unknown dosage levels thanks to an absence of labeling requirements.

Yeah. If drugs were legal, about 7.5 million people would die from them. Right. This is 11 times more Americans than are killed annually by heart disease, 13 times more Americans than are killed annually by cancer, 71 times more Americans than are killed annually by accidents, and more than 3 times more Americans than are killed annually... by all causes. Brother, I want some of what you're smoking.

Alcohol and tobacco are not the same as illegal drugs. More people use alcohol and tobacco than drugs. So your statistics need to reflect this. They also must reflect the frequency and amount of use. Drugs can be far more addictive. And tobacco does not interfere with a persons ability to drive safely. Drugs also can be easily used to exploit people, especially children. Alcohol and tobacco can be used safely in moderation; illegal drugs cannot.

Legalizing drugs would result in more people using drugs, more children using drugs, more drug related traffic accidents and fatalities, more addicts and more breakdown of the family structure.

I believe in personal responsibility - and it is the responsible thing for everyone to abstain from illegal drugs. It is responsible for my elected representatives to allow this reality to be reflected in the legal code. It is responsible for law enforcement to punish those who engage in the irresponsible activity of drug abuse. By doing so they are protecting me and my family from the destructive, irresponsible behavior of drug abusers.