Drugs: A moral decision, a matter of choice, or a national health risk?

[MusicLovingAtheist]

I was in a secular community called secular sevens on a website called bungie.net that developed the Halo series for Xbox. It seemed like everyone in that community was supportive of complete legalization of all drugs, because "a person should have control over what they put in their body", as they say. I was just reading an interview with an artist called Brethren, an extremely racist and antisemitic power electronics artist who makes music I like. I don't agree with a lot of the things he said in this interview [click for the interview]. Obviously this guy's political views are messed up, if you actually feel like reading it (which I don't expect you to). He briefly touch on the issue of drugs, saying that it's a moral issue and that the government should butt out (if you ctrl-f the word moral you might find that part of the interview).

I am for the legalization of marijuana and that's it. I have heard from so many people that marijuana has very little harmful effects and actually can help cancer patients and has other great stress relieving effects. It seems like a strange drug to be trying to criminalize. I have been told that the drug is criminalized as an artificial crime to help give money to the government and prisons. I have no idea, but artificial crime sounds like bullshit if that's the case.

My personal reason for being against legalization of drugs is because I don't want to live in a world with junkies. Imagine how bad poor neighborhoods are now. Now imagine them with everyone out of their mind on drugs. How scary would it be if we lived in a world with violent psychotic people with impaired cognitive ability? There are so many negative health effects for using drugs. I looked up some effects of a drug on arrowid called DXM. There was a gigantic list of side effects for that drug. Drugs are addictive, dangerous to health, can cause permanent brain damage and schizophrenia; there are so many health risks for drugs, it would take an encyclopedia to list them all. I think it's more of a matter of health than it is morality. Maybe some people have religious reasons for not doing drugs (you can have a faith reason for doing anything). My positions I hold are not unchangeable. I just need someone to give me a good persuasive argument to change my mind (if such an argument exists).