Posted by Bob's World,
Some form of legalization makes sense. To target supply only affects price. What we need is a way to legally buy the stuff so that it can be regulated and taxed, and to disempower the tremendous criminal and terrorist networks funded by the current system. We then need a strong family of laws as to who can use what, when and where. Let people make choices. If your choice is to use drugs, you opt out of most responsible positions in society. Finally you'd need common-sense, relatively low cost ways to enforce. Easy testing, and ways to punish those who violate the system that does not ruin them for life or punish the taxpayers in the process.

We'd need to let go of some of our Puritanical impulses to adopt such a system, but I believe we really need to.
Amen! I mean I agree.

The root of the problem is not demand. It's deeper than that. The root of the problem is the catalyst for the demand. Drug use is acceptable and glorified.
Strongly agree

I've had a hypothetical working around in my head for a few weeks. What would be the downside to the US Government announcing it would engage in the production and distribution of heroin and cocaine for domestic consumption? The heroin would be purchased directly from farmers in Afghanistan, cutting out layers of intermediaries that use the money for nefarious purposes. We could buy cocaine directly from Bolivia, a country that's been by and large a victim of the drug war. (Fair Trade Crack anyone?) It would render moot the cocaine cartels in Mexico and end street-level dealing in the U.S., which is a big driver on the violence rate.
Interesting hypothetical, but why would we purchase the drugs from the cartels? Does our government sell illegal DVDs from China? I don't think we're even considering legalizing heroin and cocaine, this is an outdated reactionary argument against legalizing marijuana.

As per the Science article, when you see others doing "soft" drugs like marijuana and shrooms, they are more likely to go ahead and try "harder" drugs like cocaine and LSD.
Complete conjecture, the real link is that they have to break the law to smoke marijuana, so now that the line has been crossed, it is easier to keep crossing it and experment with other drugs. Legalize it, and we may be able to keep a substantial portion of our population from crossing that line. It would be interesting to see if the great number of Americans who violated the law during prohibition by drinking acohol were more inclined to break other minor laws, since they crossed the line.

The war on drugs has perverted logic, and has become nothing but a political issue (one guy is tough and the other isn't allegedly). Either fight the war ruthlessly, or end the nonsense.