IR,

No, I don't know of any examples. My position is based purely on pragmatism, lacking even an ounce of emotional content. The War on Drugs has been a monumental failure by any yardstick one cares to measure with. It has two primary beneficiaries, those in the business of manufacturing, processing, distributing, and selling drugs, and on the other side of the street, drug law enforcement agencies and parts of the criminal justice system and corrections that deal with drug offenses.

The correlation between drug use and the legality of drugs is assumed and not based on any empirical evidence. The choice to use drugs is seldom influenced by whether they are legal or not. Recent surveys regarding WA state's legalization of pot indicate only a slight prospective increase of use, likely a "curiousity" factor that will fade in a short time. The number one pathway to heroin use is completely unaffected by heroin's illegal status. Do you really think the choices your kids will make about drug use will be influenced by the legal status of drugs or by being educated about drugs and drug use?

Drug education is fairly well established as more effective than drug enforcement. Since there are few facts, only informed inference suggests that a combination of drug education and drug treatment/rehab will be both cheaper and more effective than drug enforcement has been. That's impossible to know without trying it, but we know for a fact that declaring drugs illegal and investing close to $200 billion a year in drug enforcement leaves us with a national record of drug use, drug addiction, drug incarceration, and a legacy of people dead from involvement in the drug trade. By what logical yardstick could legalization, education, and treatment produce a worse national social and economic outcome?

Sg