This thread has been one of the more enlightening ones I've seen for a good while, with a great many good and thoughtful points.

You'll have no argument from me if you say "heroin [or crack, or alcohol ...] addiction is wrong, bad, harmful, and to be avoided."

Arguing in favor of legalization is not, however, the same as arguing in favor of addiction. A minor, but telling, statistic: the Netherlands, where marijuana may be obtained without much fear of prosecution, has a rate of teen marijuana use roughly half that of the United States, where the reverse is true. The US has a tremendous lead, however, in the number of lives destroyed as a result of marijuana use. This is much more a result of our draconian narcotics laws than any property of marijuana itself.

There is, to me, a defensible rationale for regulating and restricting the synthesized products of laboratories, as there is for any manufactured product. I can see no such logic in attempting to ban a plant that grows, naturally, right there in the ground. Especially given the high-handed tactics--"is this a plant in your field, farmer Bob? Consider your farm confiscated. Is your passenger holding a joint, driver Joe? Say goodbye to your truck"--employed by the various layers of secret police devoted to its suppression.

We tried all these same tactics seventy-odd years ago, against moonshiners. We caused about the same amount of misery, and enriched organized crime, and fostered gangland violence, and didn't really do much to stop the bootlegging. Our approach, and the results, are no different now. Is this any way to treat your citizens? Why can't we learn?

The fact that the US has more inmates in prison than any other nation, including the People's Republic of China, many on charges of simple possession ... well, it doesn't sit well with me. Neither does the fact that many of the laws that put them there are based on deliberate lies and God-knows-what backroom dealings.

We need to quit trying to demonize an innoccuous plant, that grows in the ground. We need to quit abusing our citizenry, and quit basing laws on half-truths and propaganda.

Maybe if we did that, we could actually start _helping_ drug victims, instead of creating them.

JtT