The fact that the Netherlands, which has essentially legalized these drugs has HALF the drug use rates of the USA, is a fact, not an opinion.
The opinions that legalization would cause spiraling drug use in the Netherlands were WRONG.
If your goal is to REDUCE drug use, this is the solution.
I see. So we should just legalize all drugs since it’s been proven that easy access means drug use goes down, right?
U.S. Department of State
International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1997
Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
SINGAPORE
The GOS [Government of Singapore] nonetheless is concerned about the increase in addiction rates and recidivism among drug offenders who have undergone treatment. There are currently about 9,000 addicts undergoing rehabilitation in Singapore treatment centers, the same number as in 1995.
THE NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands has extensive demand reduction programs and low-threshold medical services for addicts, who are also offered drug rehabilitation programs. Authorities believe such programs reach about 70-80 percent of the country's 25,000 hard-drug users (in a total population of 15.1 million). Because of the focus on disease prevention and care programs, the health condition of Dutch drug addicts is relatively good. The number of hard-drug addicts has stabilized and the average age of addicts has risen to 31 years. HIV infection among addicts is relatively low because of an extensive needle exchange program. The death rate also is low.
--http://druglibrary.net/schaffer/GovPubs/ncsr/ (scroll down to the country of your choice)
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"Iran has the highest proportion of heroin addicts in the world and a growing Aids problem." [2004 BBC report]
--news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/3791889.stm
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"There were an estimated 980,000 hardcore heroin addicts in the United States in 1999, 50 percent more than the estimated 630,000 hardcore addicts in 1992."
http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs07/794/heroin.htm
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Crunching the numbers, the addiction rate for Singapore was about 0.30% (population ~3,000,000 in 1996), vs about 0.17% for the Netherlands. Note that Singapore's numbers are only for addicts under treatment, whereas the Netherlands' are the estimated total number of addicts.
The US population in 2000 was about 280,000,000, so the rate of heroin addiction was about 0.35%.
So much for a REAL War on Drugs controlling addiction.