Hypothesis: Alcohol kills more people in this country than all illegal drugs combined.
Proposal: Decriminalize all drugs now. Marijuana, heroin, cocaine, LSD, meth, ecstasy, the lot. Disparage them, discourage them, tax them, treat them, but decriminalize them. Restrict sales to adults. (If you object that the kids are going to get ahold of them, ask yourself what the kids are doing now in the face of our failed interdiction policy.) Decriminalize drugs, and the end of artificial scarcity created by interdiction will drive down the price, the gangs will wither, and violence will decline. If you doubt it, ask yourself how much bootlegging goes in this country. We need to stop the enormous profits from trafficking from fueling ongoing international violence and providing a pretext for repression. We need to restore balance to the market so that some farmers will reallocate their production to to other crops. We need to get the vast number of young people guilty of nothing more than seeking a quick high out of jail. What do you say?