Pedro

What if the drug question was, "Do you believe in self-medication?"
The answer will correlate with ones maturity.

Daughter of satan

no, they should be legalized

vera

Do you know many people that can?

rory-c

completely agree with sharks...

when i was 14 we could and did buy weed no problem, buying alcohol meant waiting outside an off license all day hoping someone would go in for you (not likely), as for drinking in a pub forget it.

whats the point of the law? keep kids/teenagers away from drugs? keep adults away from them?

Chookie

If drugs were to be de-criminalised (I'm referring specifically to Cannabis sativa) the supply could be regulated and standardised - much like alcohol. Mind you it would also be taxed....

I have no desire to see heroin, cocaine or any of the recent chemical brews legalised. I'd rather see them eradicated. Opium, on the other hand is valuable as it provides the base for morphine and other medical concoctions.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I have no problem with ganja and not much of one with opium, but the rest I would happily see gone.

Incidentally, caffeine is drug..........

Anyone who tries banning that is in deep dooddoo.

Cedar Brown

I think the government should legalize marijuana and let it be sold in green cigarette packs at gas stations. They could probably tax the **** out of it and still sell it cheaper than dealers. Then they can lower taxes and spend less money incarcerating harmless folks. Put that money into schools.

I don't think that decriminalizing other drugs is necessarily a bad idea. Screw keeping drugs away from children. Focus on educating children so they want nothing to do with it.

I'd be fine with cocaine, heroin and opium being decriminalized. It would drain the real dangerous criminals of huge amounts of money.

NEW ARK?

Something has to be done soon. The United States has close to 2 million people behind bars. Add to that the number that are on parole or probation and the number is astounding. A large percentage of those inmates are doing time for non-violent drug possesion.

Why hasn't this country learned it's lesson from prohibition? I think that people are going to study this problem many years from now and wonder how we could have been so ignorant as to fight "the war on drugs" for so long.

I think that marijuana will be legal nationwide within the next 20 years. Heroin and cocaine: probably not, but possesion of small amounts should be decriminalized and habitual users who are caught with small amounts should be sent to treatment a few times. If that does not work, register them as addicts, and give them clean needles and clean dope (which they would have to purchase, of course), tax it, and regulate it. Keeping drugs like heroin and cocaine illegal just breeds more misery. There is always going to be a small percentage of the population who are going to use these substances. If it were made legally available to the hardcore users, perhaps we could be more succesful at keeping it out of the hands of minors.

Lucius

Yep

H.L. Mencken observed in re the 18th Amendment, "There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished."

All you guys who like to have a drink should thank all those people who broke the law enough to get Prohibition repealed. If everybody had just obeyed the law, we'd still have Prohibition.

Edgewaters

Cannabis is one thing. It's less harmful and, because it can be grown anywhere, it's alot more difficult to enforce a ban.

Heroin is an extremely dangerous drug that should be banned. Not only is it very harmful, it is also much easier to enforce a ban on these sorts of drugs, as they cannot be grown anywhere and often have to be imported.

NEW ARK?

But heroin is already banned in the U.S. If it is so easy to enforce the ban, why is it flooding into the country?