Drugs legal = less crime. Drugs legal = more police for dangerous crime. Drugs legal = addicts can be treated as humans and not animals or criminals. Drugs legal = tax benefits for the government (and possibly society). Drugs illegal = crime, misery, distrust and a lack of humanity.

Drugs legal # BERT you don't know what you are writing about!!!

Drugs legal does not get rid of black market it is only going to give the cartels more money.

Good for them. At least they may have learned something from the failure of drug policy in this country. What is the basis for deciding that drug users must,above all, be punished?

Silverbird & John from oceanside,Stop being haters and just go with the flow marijuana should be legal seeing they keep finding more benefits from it. Its about time countries stop following the USA and start thinking for them selves.Burt I stand with you brother maybe the US will learn they have to stop waisting tax payers money.On a losing war on drugs.

Decriminalization does not equal legalization. Join Together needs to watch their headlines.

"Our learning becomes impeded when we are no longer led by experience but by ideas; by what should be rather than what is". In economic law, to have an affect on the dynamics of demand, you must first have some controlling interest. In other words, you must partake in the business at some level. e.g. manufacture, supply, distribute or regulate. This is like the law of gravity..It Just Is. Hence, the government of the people / by the people must gain open access to the recreational drug market which is now being controlled by criminal thug-billionaires, millionaires, and street level profiteers on one side and, the quasi socio-industrial criminal justice system on the other. Worse than simply being ineffective, supply-side strategies drive immutable market forces to expand cultivation and trafficking, generate unintended consequences and, ultimately worsen the problem. It's robbing our nation of vital resources daily and worse, perpetuating this big Lie which says: to make a bad situation better, you first make it illegal. Wake-up people, if we stay drunk on idealogy, we will NEVER solve the drug problem. -- [undoubtedly, there are many who like it just the way it is]--

Using Bert's (and others') logic, it would seem to make sense to simply legalize everything, or just not bother with law at all-- then all our problems would simply go away. Think that is called anarchy. Contrary to some popular opinion, restrictive laws, and their enforcement, do serve a genuine need, and are prescribed for in our (and other) constitution. (When the rights of the individual infringe on the rights of others, the rights of others and society must prevail. Society does have a genuine and legitimate right to protect itself and the rights of its citizens.) This argument does seem to appear primarily an inter-generational difference of opinion. Should that be the case, proponents might be well advised to simply wait out us older antagonists- then they can change all the laws they want. (Unless, of course, they too become somewhat more conservative in perspective regarding substance abuse as (and if) they age, based on their cumulative experience.) PS- I would certainly hope this brief observation is not so "inflammatory" as to warrant still further censorship.

The legalization of drugs would prevent our civil liberties from being threatened any further, it would reduce crime rates, reverse the potency effect, improve the quality of life in the inner cities, prevent the spread of disease, save the taxpayer money, and generally benefit both individuals and the community as a whole. Our arguments are based on a basic appreciation of the benefits provided by voluntary exchange and the role markets play in coordinating human activities. Legalizing drugs would eliminate many inconsistencies, guarantee freedoms, and increase the effectiveness of the government's anti-drug beliefs. The present war on drugs has not and will not produce a decisive victory. We advocate a new approach to this important social problem.

I agree with Louis Weigele: "Decriminalization does not equal legalization." The only plus side of decrim is fewer people are needlessly entangled in the legal system. Legalization means taking the already widely-sold products away from the Black Market and allowing tightly-controlled businesses to sell them instead (And if I could have my way, there would be no public advertisement for any adult-only item). Also, legalizing (or, regulating) drugs has nothing to do with legalizing true crimes like robbery, rape, murder and vandalism. A real crime is when there is a victim every time it happens. If personal responsibilities are not being met due to addiction of any kind, that is a medical matter, not a judicial one. Prohibition II is mostly about keeping money flowing and the laws are severely abused, which means countless innocent people have been wrongfully terrorized by our police. I do not wish to pay taxes for this. Let's get these mysterious items out of the shadows and learn the truth about them. Reducing harm should be the ultimate goal here, and we aren't achieving it.

What I don't understand is how using drugs in our country can be both illegal AND yet be based on the disease model. In my addiction studies classes they point out that drug addiction is considered a disease in the US just like any other disease such as cancer or diabetes yet I have not heard of anyone who have those diseases ever be arrested for having them. I just don't understand how this nation can say that people are powerless over their drug habits and yet arrest them when they give in to them. It's just hypocritical.

Janelle, The criminal justice system in the U.S.A. has made huge amounts of money through the interdiction process over the past years. This has fed into profiteering by organized crime. We have been putting sick people in prison. We now have 2.3 million in prison, of which around 80% are there on alcohol and other drug related charges. Many are non-violent convictions and at the present, are being gradually released on parole. Things are changing in response to the fact that international research is moving toward genetic, epigenetic and neuropsychopharmacological cures and treatments that work. With ever improving technology, the time is coming when we will effectively treat and cure at a very rapid pace. This will throw our national economy into a tailspin unlike any we have ever experienced. This problem is in the process of being rectified but we may be too far behind already.