[loeg]

I agree in general. Criminalization keeps a substantial population from using drugs.

> people will destroy their lives once drugs are legalized

I don't think this statement is really a good summary of that, though.

The better example is prohibition. I wouldn't say most people who consume alcohol are destroying their lives, but alcohol has a moderate impact on the liver. Regular use increases liver-related disease. And during the prohibition, liver disease went down starkly.

Say we legalize everything. Even if the additional addiction is negligible, any minor to moderate health detriment spread across a larger population (due to legalization) is a big societal cost.

Anyway, I think there is still a decent argument to be made about individual freedom being worth the cost, and a decent argument to be made about a substitution effect (given how bad we already know alcohol to be, a legal drug just needs to be no worse than alcohol).

[WalterBright]

> Criminalization keeps a substantial population from using drugs.

Alcohol consumption went up during Prohibition, and went back down after it was repealed.

[loeg]

I don't believe that is true. Do you have a citation for that claim?

E.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...

> Scholars estimate that consumption dropped to a low of about 60% of pre-prohibition levels around 1925, rising to almost 80% before the law was officially repealed.[citation needed] After the prohibition was implemented, alcohol continued to be consumed. However, how much compared to pre-Prohibition levels remains unclear. Studies examining the rates of cirrhosis deaths as a proxy for alcohol consumption estimated a decrease in consumption of 10–20%.[96][97][98] However, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's studies show clear epidemiological evidence that "overall cirrhosis mortality rates declined precipitously with the introduction of Prohibition," despite widespread flouting of the law.[99] One study reviewing city-level drunkenness arrests came to a similar result.[100] And, yet another study examining "mortality, mental health and crime statistics" found that alcohol consumption fell, at first, to approximately 30 percent of its pre-Prohibition level; but, over the next several years, increased to about 60–70 percent of its pre-prohibition level.[101]

[WalterBright]

> Do you have a citation for that claim?

From the Ken Burns PBS "Prohibition". I don't have a transcript of it, but here's a quote from PBS:

"The solution the United States had devised to address the problem of alcohol abuse had instead made the problem even worse. The statistics of the period are notoriously unreliable, but it is very clear that in many parts of the United States more people were drinking, and people were drinking more." http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/unintended-consequen...

Alcohol related deaths in the US are currently 2.75%. They were 3.2% in 1923.

https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-co...

http://www.census.gov/popclock/

Consumption did decline initially, but then rose steadily.

"Prohibition" by Eward Behr, pg. 148

More: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html