It really is time to legalize drugs, yes, all of them

[jeff47]

20. Compare to other drugs.

Drugs will still cost money. People will still steal money, sometimes violently

Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances on the planet. How many times do you hear of someone getting robbed for cigarette money? Doesn't happen because it's not that expensive to get cigarettes.

And who is to say that when corporations start controlling drugs, that there wouldn't still be a black market, with cartels and home-brewers of meth and similar drugs competing with corporate prices?

'Home-brew' will never be able to produce drugs as cheaply as industrial-scale production. We've seen this over and over and over and over again.

And think about other drugs that already do have a limited 'home-brew' market - people aren't killing each other over home-brewed beer or hand-rolled cigarettes.

people will go to great lengths to do drugs and their safety may not always be a top priority

Yes, but they're buying the 'industrial-produced' drugs not because they're safer, but because they're cheaper. Safety would be legislated in, instead of created by market pressure.

We've normalized alcohol, and kids still drink.

Two points: 1) We haven't really normalized alcohol. There's still a huge deal over turning 21 and being able to drink legally. Drinking is considered "adult", so kids try to get alcohol. Compare that to European countries where kids can have alcohol at extremely young ages. Binge drinking is a far smaller problem in those countries.

2) Even with #1, underage drinking is down...probably somewhat related to drinking being down overall in the population. If the kid doesn't see Mom & Dad drink every night, they aren't taught "drinking is what grown-ups do".

but legalizing them isn't going to make all the problems associated with them go away.

It doesn't make the problems associated with the drugs themselves go away. What it does remove is all the secondary problems caused by prohibition, such as crime. There haven't been any "Valentine's day massacres" over alcohol distribution since prohibition ended. Bud and Miller are content to duke it out in advertising instead of using firearms.