Drugs & Our Children?

Less people smoke cannabis if it becomes liberal:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/cri...cle1870841.ece

A pretty good sum up, of for and against arguments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arguments_for_and_against_drug_prohibition

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition:
http://www.leap.cc/

Cannabis and drug problems are HEALTH problems, NOT crime problems. (See Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: http://www.leap.cc/ )

Legalization = Control of distribution, more help for abusers, less crime, less mafia-money, and people get the courage to get help for theire problems without the fear of beeing prosecuted, etc...
War on Drugs = Jail, tickets, more crime, mafia-money, and the amount of abuse stays just the same... etc etc...

When drugs are illegal, people that need help, wont get it, until its too late.
Alot of people use drugs irresponsibly, because they lack good information sources on drugs and narcotics, with lying authorities on one hand, and misinformed drug users on the other. (Remember that natural drugs, and entheogens have been used ever since mankind became thinking creatures, by different cultures and religions with respect, information on the subject through education. Education is the key word, of making abuse numbers go down.)

Todays drug policy and myths around cannabis, ends up with our young people going straight down the drug-hell, with jail and the whole shazzam, with absolutely NO chance of rehabilitation before its too late...
Drug use and cannabis use, is a HEALTH problem, not a crime problem, and should definately not be both. Prohibition works against its goal. Noone stops using drugs because its illegal, the only people that benefit from prohibition are criminals that profit from selling!

The war on drugs is damaging. I wouldn't even consider marijuana a health threat, certainly not while it's stacked up to other legal drugs like tobacco (nicotine), alcohol and most pharma drugs. Also considering the fact there's never been a death that was the direct cause of marijuana. In fact IMHO, between marijuana and alcohol, if one had to be illegal, I'd say it should be alcohol (note I'm NOT saying prohibition is a good idea, it obviously isn't. Just that I think that alcohol is a far more insidious thing than marijuana).

I do however think that some drugs are maybe too nasty to be legalised. Definately Heroin and Meth. Cocaine as well. But if some drugs were legal, there would be better alternatives to theese drugs, considering the fact that heroin comes from opium, cokaine from coka leaves etc, so addicts can be given theese MUCH healthier alternatives (although not very healthy in the first place, so i should propably say: less damaging), and we would not see much more of theese "nasty-drugs", except from in the really hard criminal environments, unless they are so addicted that nothing else works.

I've heard too many stories of people getting really violent when on cocaine, and heroine is just way too addictive. As I understand it, going through heroine withdrawl is something like one of the lower circles of hell. Although legalising heroin for addicts would certainly help alleviate some problems. Purity is the real danger of the drug. It's cut with so many heinous chemicals to increase it's volume, high and addictiveness, that it can hardly be classified as heroin anymore. And that's where the real danger lies. Pure heroin, while obviously not the best thing in the world, isn't nearly as dangerous as today's current street heroin. Not to mention, nobody knows what purity they are buying, leading to increased risk of overdose.

If drugs fell under a regulatory board (similar to the FDA or USDA, but better, hopefully) a great number of problems would be reduced.
Heroin's illegality and desirability also lead to a drastically inflated price. That coupled with it's addictiveness will obviously lead to alot of crime, both on the distributor and user level. Cigarettes are highly addictive and highly desirable, yet you don't see turf wars, cartel wars, drug wars and cigarette smokers ripping off convenience stores for a fix. Why? Because they are easy to obtain and, at least currently, affordable to most.

Another argument is to ask an opponent of legalization this: "why do you want to give $36 billion a year to criminals?"
Think of what that money buys. It buys guns for one thing, which in turns buys violence. Imagine instead if it was legal, and taxed. Make the price half what it is now and make 3/4s of that taxes (pot shouldn't cost too much more -- if any more -- than tobacco to grow and process). Take that tax money and put half into the general revenue, one quarter into policing the taxes and other, more destructive drugs, and one quarter into health care for any health problems that result from the legalization. That's billions of dollars for each of those categories, and billions of dollars out of the hands of criminals. Why don't the opponents of legalization want to take billions of dollars out of the hands of criminals?

They might claim they want to take that money away from criminals, but in fact we know that the way they've tried to do so has actually increased the amount of money those criminals get. So ask them "why do you want to give $36 billion a year to criminals?"
If forced to vote, I would go with legalizing everything, because what we do now in the USA does not prevent addiction, crimes, or wasted money, resources in the war on drugs - the drugs won.

I'd like to hear other parents opinions, and if some of my statements are wrong, then please help me correct them, because this doesn't seem to be right at all... Thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs#Effects