Why is the President commuting sentences of cocaine traffickers?

[Major Nikon]

273. The legal consequences of cannabis and bath salts aren't that different

So the results are predictable. When you force the drug trade underground, you lose all control over it and those who wish to have more intoxicating choices than ethanol are going to be dealing with distributors who often stock a variety of products.

Kinky Friedman has a pretty good line. "Everybody knows the gateway drug of Texas is beer!"

It's important to remember that the hysteria over certain drugs is just that. The law enforcement community loves to show pictures of meth addicts in terrible physical states. Somewhere around .5-1 million people in the US are using illicit meth regularly, yet only a small minority of those fit the stereotype, that suggests the vast majority of meth users aren't having such problems. Chemically illicit meth just isn't that different from adderall, so where's all the pictures of school aged children with missing teeth and psychosis? It's not unlike showing a picture of a destitute alcoholic to someone sipping a chardonnay with dinner and asking them if they want to wind up that way.

Unquestionably a small minority of people who use any highly intoxicating drug, including alcohol, are going to have significant problems with addiction. This is going to occur more or less to the same degree whether or not those substances are legal or illegal, and there's a very high social cost to the later for no tangible gain and an exacerbation of the problems that are going to inevitably exist. The justification is completely mindless and the result is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It goes something like 'drugs ruin lives, so lets put you in jail and ruin your life to prove it'.