Reply #108: Yeah, well, I don't want $40 Billion a year in MY tax dollars going

[Warren DeMontague]

to a bullshit "war on drugs" which is aimed PRIMARILY at pot smokers.

And I don't think we're accomplishing anything by filling prison cells with non-violent drug offenders serving mandatory minimum sentences that are, in many cases, longer than the sentences for violent crimes.

Prohibition. Doesn't. Work. It didn't work with alcohol, and it doesn't work with other things. Regulation is what keeps alcohol out of the hands of minors, and that's why in many places it's easier for kids to get illegal drugs than it is for them to get booze. I don't have any rose-colored glasses about any of this stuff- I've seen several different sides of all of it, and despite my 'reckless youth' I haven't done anything stronger than caffeine for many, many years. Alcohol nearly killed me, and Nicotine killed my dad. But the answer to the problem of addiction is treatment on demand, along with honest education--- not the kind of D.A.R.E. Bullshit where they tell kids pot will get them date raped or make their testicles fall off, so that the kids will never believe anything anyone tells them about truly dangerous drugs, like meth, ever again.

No, the "war on drugs" is an abject fucking failure, and frankly, the notion that the government has any business telling consenting adults what they can or cannot do with their OWN bodies is deep down offensive. If people get behind the wheel, endanger others, or whatever other example along those lines you want to toss out, then they are committing a criminal act and should be treated as such. But I greatly resent the notion that a free citizen's bloodstream or central nervous system should be government property. Fuck that.