The current War on Drugs, started over 20 years ago by President Reagan, coupled with mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, have managed to fill our prisons with non-violent offenders, often releasing dangerous inmates to make room and save money.
There are a myriad of drugs, from healing aspirin to penicillin, from mood altering Ritalin to Viagra, from performance enhancing steroids to hormones (to Viagra again?), from smoking tobacco to marijuana to crack to opium to herbs, from drinking coffee to beer to wine to spirits, from huffing gas to glue, and the list goes on.
Some people smoke a cigarette and the nicotine blast makes them feel great, relieves boredom and keeps them alert. For others, it's just nasty stuff. Again, this is a matter of tastes, possibly even genetic, and such matters are best left to the individual and not mandated by the state.
Don't get me wrong, if you have been drinking or taking recreational drugs or even prescription or over-the-counter drugs that make you drowsy and you drive erratically or commit a crime, then you should be held accountable. But the act of taking drugs should not be illegal because that right should remain with the individual. The state simply does not have sufficient interests to make such broad claims as a gallon of whiskey, a carton of cigarettes and bottle full of Viagra are legal, but a single marijuana joint will land you in prison and destroy your life.
This is particularly galling when presidents, senators and the like have all used these drugs themselves, mostly when they were young, some when they were older. They may claim they didn't inhale or that they have found Jesus and no longer abuse drugs, but many more still do and have a brother, wife or twin daughters who embarrass them with their substance abuse. None of these politicians think they should go to jail, or that their family and friends should go to jail. It's always someone else's kid who needs to be arrested.
What's interesting is that by being illegal, most drugs fall into the hands of children quicker. Because most kids get lighter sentences, drug dealers use kids to sell drugs. Because drugs are sold on a black market, there's no reason why kids shouldn't be targeted as customers and resellers. After all, who do most kids know best: adults or other kids?
Because illegal drugs are so profitable, people take extraordinary risks to acquire and sell them. Because they are illegal, theft and violence are much higher because drug dealers feel a need to protect themselves, not from the police who are after them, but from other criminals who want their drugs or their cash.
Because it's a black market, there are no taxes paid on the products sold. There's no quality assurance, so people often get drugs laced with other more nasty drugs (like PCP or angel dust), or they get such variations in the quality that they cannot properly determine a suitable dosage. Many drug overdoses are accidents because people do not know about the purity of the drugs they take. It's as if every beer you opened would have varying levels of alcohol and could be laced with other drugs. There's nobody to sue if you're sold a tainted or faux product.
Because such recreational drugs are illegal, most users do not seek medical attention or even mention to their doctors that they are users. Fear of arrest or losing one's job is enough to keep the medical profession at arm's length. Doctors have to guess at drug use and abuse since few patients will volunteer the information. Kids cannot even talk with their parents or teachers or mentors because the discussion doesn't center on their health and risks, but on the fact that it's illegal and they will go to jail.
By re-legalizing drugs (yes, nearly all drugs were legally accessible at one time), users will be able to buy a product with a known quality. Manufacturers could be held accountable for the quality of their wares. Sales would be taxable, creating much needed revenues, including using tax money to teach the very real health effects of many drugs. Doctors could discuss usage with their patients, giving them factual information on what those drugs will do to them over the long haul, whether a particular dosage is reasonably safe or not, how mixing drugs can increase their potency, and even to test their patients for ill effects from using drugs.
Drive by shootings would disappear, just as the machine guns died down after Prohibition was rescinded and alcohol use was re-legalized. Kids wouldn't be the focus of sales, and sales could be restricted to those over 18, putting more controls in place than exist today. Most high school kids say they can purchase illegal drugs easily and quickly.
Young kids wouldn't look up to rich drug dealers in their sporty cars and fine clothes because such street thugs would be a thing of the past.
Besides, the War on Drugs has been a huge failure. Each arrested person stops paying taxes, costs money to be housed in prison, loses their job, makes it hard to get a job after they've served their time, and their families are often destroyed with them. When the person arrested was also the breadwinner, a new family goes on welfare, costing even more of our tax dollars.
The quantity of drugs has not declined during the 20 year war. The quality and variety of drugs has increased. Drug busts routinely set new records, meaning that even more drugs are coming in or being manufactured than before. Drugs can be manufactured or grown indoors, making enforcement of anti-drug laws pointless. In a free market, if there are people who want something, they will buy it. In a free nation, they should be allowed to do so.