@ - The ghost, excellent point.

@ bardicverse- I understand your view as well, but, I would gaurentee you if all these drugs were decriminalized that would bring the street prices of it down significantly. Which means instead of people paying anywhere from $60-80 for a gram of coke they'd be looking at $20 and weed would go back to 70's prices allowing these usurs to have the money to afford it which might increase the amount people take but result in people doing less drastic things to be able to afford it like prostitution, robbery,ect.

there are so many facts and viewpoints to consider if you just say "all drugs" but I am all for legalizing weed, however there should be an 18+ law that comes with it.

With it legalized the different strains can be monitored and made safer, also this will remove the risk of the weed being tampered with, whether thats with it being spiked, or sprayed with crystals to make there appear to be more of it.
Also the fact that with more and more research being donr on it, they are finding more and more positive effects of it (I'm not saying its all good), as well as the fact that people never become violent or angry after smoking it as opposed to alcohol.

The reasons for legalising it greatly outweigh the reasons against. Oh and just for the record I don't even smoke the stuff, I have tried it but don't like the effect.

Just ask your the question why it is possible for a country in Europe to legalize drugs and doesn't have a fucked up society and even be one of the most developped countries in the world? Why can they do it and why the USA not? Or are you saying we in the USA are dumb motherfuckers?

Less people would die.

Drugs in this country are legal. The most addicting drug you can get, is Nicotine, and any adult can buy it. Hell, they even came out with a device that vaporizes it for you in pure form, and it's legal. Alcohol is a drug, and it's legal.

The better question though is not how many people would die or not die, but why are some drugs illegal? A law should never be made in a free country that protects me from me. People do stupid things every day. They shouldn't be outlawed.

There is noting in out constitution that allows drugs to be illegal (and for a long, they weren't). I believe they should be legal, and this coming from someone who has never done an illegal drug in his life.

In fact up until right before prohibition it was considered unconstitutional to ban drugs.

I mean honestly if you think about it, tobacco kills way more people than marijuana would because it is less addictive and doesn't have anywhere near the same amount of carcinogens as tobacco. Our reasons for allowing the drugs we currently allow and outlawing other drugs are painfully inconsistent.

Not to mention I can walk you through a grocery store and pick out at least five completely legal things that would get you pretty fucked up that are way more physically dangerous than marijuana. Getting "high" is easy as hell. Why not make marijuana legal? It is about the safest high you can get.

@everybody saying "what good would come from legalizing heroin?":

Heroin would be cheaper. This is good for addicts. They will be less likely to run out of every cent they have and start mugging people. This reduces drug-related violent crime. That's good for everybody.

Heroin will be cleaner and with consistent purity. This is good for addicts because the majority of overdoses comes from switching dosages, which comes from switching dealers (who had shit with different purity levels), which comes from one dealer getting arrested, because heroin is illegal. The illegality of it is what kills people. No heroin addict just wakes up one day and decides "Hey, today I feel like doubling my dosage, even though I know it will kill me." There will be less heroin-related deaths. That's good for everybody.

Fewer people in jail, less red tape clogging up our court systems, no need for drug dealers or drug cartels, less crime, fewer deaths, lower taxes, and higher tax revenue for education/rehab/whatever.

@bardicverse, I'm not saying we should give legal jobs to drugdealers. We would make drugdealers obsolete and replace them with legal dispensaries, the same way we have marijuana clinics/dispensaries/cafes/whatever. If anybody still tried to deal drugs, we'd throw them in jail. We would make the idea of somebody in an alley selling heroin just as stupid as somebody in an alley selling milk or beer or candy. You'd assume they put something weird in it, alert the police, and buy whatever you want at a legal dispensary instead. And no, not at Wal-Mart.

And I wasn't trying to pull a "but the kids" move with my cars statement. I also said "or old ladies." I was just trying to say they run over everybody at random. I didn't mean to sidetrack us there.


@everybody, watch the video Jackson50 posted. I watched it when he posted it in an old thread, and it's really great.

I'll be comming from the left hook riding a star-sprinkled meteorite tail of experience:

Legalizing (soft)drugs in your society does not fuck up your country. The fact that I can walk around Amsterdam now a quarter to two in the morning without getting mugged, without seeing childeren getting high and without being hit by stoned drivers kind of proves it. Also the fact that the Netherlands is still one of the most prosperous nations in the world should prove that drugs are not by default bad.

The last drug-related deaths I can recall? Tourists. Tripping on shrooms and then committed suïcide.

I think all drugs can be made legal but should be regulated differently.

Softdrugs should be legal like tobacco, alcohol, etc. No harm there.

Hallucogens should only be consumed indoor, supervised perhaps. We have brothels that work, we used to have opiumhouses, get something similair for hallucogens and I can assure you no people will die from it anymore (unless allergic reactions are a factor.)

Harddrugs like Coke, Heroïne, etc... thats a bit tougher. Coke is a party drug and monitoring that is rather pointless. Perhaps throw it in there with soft-drugs? Coke-heads in general are easily spotted and avoided when the drugs have a bad effect (e.g. the user becomes agressive).

Heroïne we have more experience with. The junks here can follow heroïne sponsored programs that actually help them detox and lose their addiction. Just copy that. But in general, escapist-drugs like heroïne are bad and I believe that only people who are already addicts should come into contact with it - to lose their addiction to it.

The problem is that there is incredibly reliable sociological evidence that users of the "hardcore" narcotics are much more likely to commit crime.  Not to mention the physical danger those drugs present is very real, especially considering how addictive they are.  How addictive a drug is should be a consideration in evaluating whether or not to legalize a drug.

Marijuana, hallucinogens, and certain other drugs do not have these risks.  They do not encourage criminal/socially undesirable behavior (well, at least not anymore than alcohol does, and often significantly less than alcohol does), they aren't physically dangerous (you can't OD on them, although some hallucinogens are potentially dangerous to your psyche), and they aren't addictive.

Not to mention the US is only going to advance on this issue in baby steps.  It will be a major victory if we even get the biggest "non-drug" of the group, marijuana, legalized.

Well shit Cocaine built Miami. Anyone watch the Cocaine Cowboys documentary? Anyways, yeah you'll never be able to completely eliminate the supply as long as their is demand. There will always be demand (although I do reckon that pharmaceutical companies probably fucked shit up by making heroin and amphetamines).

Edit: Some people are mentioning coke addicts and the like, and defining their character. I would propose that upper class people and even upper middle class use drugs just as widely, but it isn't as apparent and put out there. You would never know. It's more easy to show a crackhead than showing a lawyer or another professional using -although I imagine that the crackhead is abusing.

Anyone seen the documentary 'born rich'? The W.A.S.P.S. mention their drug habits.