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

[MusicLovingAtheist]

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?

So, in order and by color:

You are already living in a word with junkies. After 40+ years of this drug war shit it should be patently obvious that it creates junkies and does not prevent them.

You know, once you legalize this shit and remove the profit incentive for the smugglers the reverse may happen. The druggies are fine once they are doped up. The gunfire comes from the turf wars by the sellers not the users.

But only for "drugs" which the government has determined are illegal, eh? What about alcohol and prescription drugs? Do the negative impacts of those not count because Pfizer makes hefty campaign "contributions" (a/k/a bribes)?

You're coming across as very naive. In addition to the above you are failing to factor in the increase in police intrusion and the decimation of our civil rights for this so-called "drug war" which is a total flop in any case. Read through the "Fucking Cops" thread for example after example of what has really happened in this country.

Read my reply in "fucking cops". Poor neighborhoods would be more susceptible to drug use. That's because the black market is strengthened by the criminalization of drugs. It's an easy way for poor people to make easy money. It really rubs me the wrong way when you say "you're coming across as very naive". I voiced my opinion on "police intrusion" in your "fucking police" thread. Go look at it.

As a matter of fact I am not living in a world with junkies. I live in an affluent neighborhood where that shit isn't a problem. This is one of the reasons I hate poor neighborhoods.

You may or may not be right on the part about violence coming from turf wars instead of drug addicts. I know that turf wars are the cause of violence, but I also think that drug addiction can lead to violence too. Look at alcohol addiction. That is a classic case of drug related violence. That is the most commonly abused drug. Perhaps if we legalized drugs there would be far more violence related to other drug abuse.

We tried to prohibit alcohol. Everyone knows that. There are consequences for the legalization of alcohol. It's not a hard drug. You can find problems with any facet of society. Just because the cause of the problems is criminalizing drugs doesn't mean the solution is making them legal.