What's wrong with the lethal weapons we already have. What is more of a deterrant lethal or non-lethal. Just more backward stuff from the Obama administration. How about we hit them with

Missles and rockets!

When we capture these knuckleheads, give them two days to build their own parachute and then drop them from 10,000 feet back into mexico or columbia. If they make it, they make it.

Is this the Obama or the Nixon administration? He talks like Obama, but acts like Nixon. How much more will our country have to spend here? This is to stop marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin, and will deal crushing blows to several economies of at all successful.

Those economies will try to fight it, and the best we can hope for is for street prices to rise. Still, methamphetamine is more dangerous than cocaine, and our supply of that is likely to become more domestic in response. Take away the pot, and kids will be sniffing glue and doing other more dangerous drugs. It's natural to want to experience an altered state of consciousness, and an inquisition won't change that.

hphughey, are you a part of the law-enforcement or prescription drug industry? What do you have to gain against an intelligent, well-reasoned and researched approach to fighting drug abuse? Read up on your history. All societies allow certain altered states of consciousness. Why must we fear and prohibit the safer ones, and market alcohol and tobacco? What do you want to hear? Kill or imprison everyone that seeks to experience something other than a drunken stupor?

Backwardsindeed you must be into your pot. I am not afraid of pot smokers, except that they breed more pot smokers. The real prohibition of alcohol will come again some day soon. The reason the first attempt failed was the Mafia. Sort of like the Cartels of Mexico. Yes, read history. We have been fighting a war on drugs and we have been winning. Teen drug use has dropped from 12% in the 80s to 8% in the late 90s. If we can close these dispensories, and get states like California to obey the Federal laws, we will be closer to accomplishing our goals. And by the way, if you say pot is okay and Acid is not, then kids will seek acid, acording to your theory. How about we take away pot and if they experience pot, maybe they won't want to risk getting arrested for it, if it remains illegal. What is wrong with keeping a sober head anyway? Kids will try things, it's the adults that should be telling them what is right and wrong and that sobriety is good and being high and in a state of mind where you don't have control of your inhabitions is wrong. But instead we have idiots like you running around lying and saying that pot is good. Stoners can't even think for themselves, they listen to other stoners that are getting rich off selling weed. Pot is bad, alcohol is bad, tobacco is bad. It is simple to see that people like you don't want to be productive members of society. You only want to cause morale decay. Well good luck. The rest of us will continue to stand together and tell you to get lost.

I'm not lying to you, look up my claims. We may be reducing drug use, but at what cost? What ruins more lives, drugs, or incarceration? And is incarceration treatment? It's a common story that a drug dealer will get arrested, and will go back on the streets with even fewer legitimate options, and will resume selling to get by. I agree, drugs should not be seen as desirable. I think they key is to teach people to alter their state of mind naturally, through meditation. It is natural to want to experiment with consciousness. History proves this. It's natural for societies to fear this, as the novelty-seekers that take such risks would otherwise be the most valued and productive members of that society. I didn't say pot is good, I said it's more benign than many other substances. I'd rather have youth experimenting with that than with meth. But, after all, I am simply an idiot. Dispensaries exist for medical purposes, not for recreation. They may be abused, sure, but that is no fault of the laws. The fault of the law is that sick and dying people are imprisoned for possessing plant matter, and thus deprived of an effective medication.

If the time you spent attempting to insult me and label me part of the problem was actually spent researching the problem, you could properly address my names instead of petty name-calling. Continue to tell me to get lost, as you spend 20 times more imprisoning drug users than attempting to prevent drug use through education or to treat addiction. I'll continue to hope this country begins to think instead of just reacting. It's prohibition that allows organized drug smuggling to be profitable. If domestic production and distribution were regulated instead of prohibited, much could be done with the funds to benefit society, and crime would have no place within such a system. It's worth looking at, instead of continuing to build more prisons. Are you aiming for the incarceration of fully 2% of adult Americans? That should help the economy recover.

Verde, I must ask. Where are you getting your information? All statistics I have seen have shown teen drug use to have escalated. It is important to note that law enforcement agencies have a vested interest in making drug abuse appear to have lessened. It makes them, and by extension, the funding increases they have received and their increased latitude in their ability to get around individual rights and freedoms out to seem successful. Much information exists to show the reverse to be true. For example: http://www.teendrugabuse.us/teendrugstatistics.html

Dear Concerned in the last 8 years before the new administration illegle drug use droped 25%. I know you don't believe this because the Bush Administration could not have done anything right.

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People in prison are not in prison for using drugs! They are in prison for violating the law. And being under the influence in my state is only a misdemeanor. Now what is your claim, again? I agree, if anyone is in prison for mearly being under the influence, set them free. The fact is, the ones in prison committed felonies. The ones in jail have committed felonies or misdemeanors that have sentances of less than one year. So how many of these felons do you think have been arrested for being mere patients? I will laugh if you find anyone that was mearly taking their medicine as it was prescribed by their doctor. Medicinal Marijuana is a joke.