Should we legalize (ill.) drugs and use the tax revenue to fund drug education?

[DavidB.]

Legalizing the most additive drugs, like heroin, is crazy.

Allowing them to remain illegal is worse. I'd rather not fill the prisons up with people on account of what amounts to a victimless crime. Legalization would offer safer avenues for the use of the drug and would take away the criminal element that goes along with it, crushing the black market in the process and making the use of the drug safer for its users. So long as the sale is tightly regulated, I see no reason why any drug should be prohibited. Prohibition is a waste of time, effort, and resources.

Yes, I tend to agree with this, and with Trump's idea. The War on Drugs is immoral, ineffective, and extremely costly.

[DavidB.]

Sigh. Of course the social costs are way higher if it's left to the criminal circuit. Ever heard of the Dutch province of Limburg? That strange thingy in the south east, just look at my avatar. It's a border region. Because of drug tourism, the government decided to make all "coffee shops" (the places where soft drugs are legally sold, not to be confused with places like Starbucks) private clubs, meaning that one needed a "member card" to enter. In order to get a member card, one had to be a Dutch national. What do you think happened? Drug tourists, of course, didn't stop coming, like the government foolishly believed. Instead, foreign drug dealers purchased their "stuff" on the black market. Not in shops in the inner cities, where it is crowded anyway, but on parkings along the highways to Belgium/Germany, in quiet neighborhoods, or in already problematic neighborhoods (just what they needed...). The image of young drug dealers in BMWs driving like dangerous idiots through neighborhoods and on highways should now pop up into your head - because that's the kind of people that will jump into the market if it's not legal. No wonder that the idea of "club cards" as a national requirement has quickly been buried.

As someone from a country that has experienced the social costs of drugs being illegal (for foreigners) and of drugs being legal, I can assure you that there is a big difference.

[DavidB.]

I can't believe we're even having this debate about soft drugs. It would be equally ridiculous to discuss the legalization of alcohol. Yes, it should be legal, and some people will do stupid things, and they're responsible for that because they're adults - end of the story.