Absolutely. Social education is a way more effective means of preventing drug abuse than just making it illegal. People under 18, for instance, used to smoke tobacco all the time, and now it is much more uncommon because of all the information out there about how harmful it is.
There is essentially an NDA on marijuana and people aren't exposed to much good information about the drug or even information about the drug coming from sources who aren't blatantly misleading the public. Keeping it illegal simply keeps people in the dark and actually encourages abuse of the drug rather than discourages it since people don't have the information to make informed decisions.
Kasz, I'm not at the point where I would say that heroin, the opiates, and many other types of drugs are illegal, but I'm definitely for legalizing a large percentage of currently illegal drugs, especially those that you can't overdose on and don't cause much if any bodily harm, like almost all hallucinogens.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
