[robertpaulsen]

"the price of drugs would plummet as they were legalized"

Maybe not as much as you think. In Amsterdam, pot goes for around $10/gr. (about $300/oz.). Legal medical marijuana in California goes for $480/oz., without tax.

I daresay street marijuana is cheaper. And trying to collect the tax on millions of home growers would require a government agency 10X the size of the DEA.

[Nate505]

Saying that pot is legal in the Netherlands or medical pot is legal in Calfiornia is assanine, at least in the sense of virtually any other product that is legal. In both instances, supplying it is still ridiculously expensive, as it is illegal to grow it in any sort of quantity that would increase supply and reduce price.

If growing tobacco were made illegal in pretty much the world, but possession and sale of it were still legal, the price of tobacco would skyrocket, way past the even $6 a pack or whatever they cost in the states that tax the hell out of tobacco.

Hell, replace tobacco and use tomatoes or lettuce or whatever you want in that analogy. When you restrict the supply, by whatever means, the price goes up, especially if there is a great demand, and especially if the risk of procuring the supply is high.