[awillen]

The point is that we should have a coherent policy in the US around how we treat drugs.

Either we should accept a certain threshold of danger around drug use and allow all drugs under that threshold to be used (with appropriate regulation), or we should not accept the use of dangerous drugs and should outlaw them.

Right now, US drug policy is that a fairly dangerous drug (alcohol) is not legal, while other clearly less dangerous drugs (marijuana, most hallucinogens, MDMA, etc.) are not legal. It should be changed to be a rational policy in which everything less dangerous than alcohol is legal or a policy in which alcohol is not legal.

[cjbgkagh]

If anything I think perhaps reducing the legal age for drinking in the US. Where I’m from getting black out drunk is considered immature and people are expected to grow out of it, but then we start a lot earlier. Plus we learn how to handle alcohol * before we learn how to drive so it’s not considered matcho to drink and drive. I think cigarette companies like the 3 year gap of being able to buy cigarettes but not alcohol.

I’m pretty pro legalization, I think it’s probably best handled at the cultural level, but until society matures there is going to a fair bit of collateral damage and I think we should be honest about that.

* it’s a generalization… obviously it doesn’t work out this way for everyone.

[nobody9999]

>The point is that we should have a coherent policy in the US around how we treat drugs.

But we have had a coherent policy around drugs in the US:

1. Identify a potential issue with a particular drug;

2. Investigate the issues and examine the evidence;

3. Create a set of policy solutions to address the issues;

4. Pick the least effective, most harmful policy solution and implement that.

5. Profit!

All you have to do is look at all the major drug legislation over the past 130 years or so to see that such is, in fact, the case.