Personally I'm OK with legalizing pot. When I was growing up it was just a misdemeanor if you weren't holding large quantities. It appeared to be on the way to legalization.

Somewhere over the last 30 years people decided to make it a horrible crime again - almost as bad as being a Republican at Berkeley.

It's probably less damaging than alcohol. I say legalize it or make alcohol illegal too.

When you get to coke, meth, heroin, etc - I say drown the dealers on prime time TV (a real reality show).

>William does bring up a good point though - where do you draw the line? If you legalize weed, what about cocaine and other drugs?
>My current stance is the heck with it - legalize and regulate them all. I think this is the only practical way to combat the drug cartels at this point. From what I've read weed makes up a large % of the revenue for these thugs - but not enough to put them out of business.
>Just imagine the progress we could of made spending the 1 trillion dollars we've spent on this "war on drugs" if we'd instead spent the money treating it as a health issue, reducing the number of addicts and increasing awareness.
>One of the points this drug panel was making is that what we've been trying for 30 years simply isn't working so we need to try something else - and in this case we need to try something drastically different...so hey lets learn from places that have tried this other approach with success.
>Lets face it - when people like drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman end up on Forbes Magazines “World’s Most Powerful People” list I'd say it's time to give up with our current policy and try something else.
>
>>>>>When other countries are exporting death and destruction to our country, they should become the focus of the US, like those countries in the middle east that fostered terrorism. Cocaine, heroin, and all those other drugs are a cancer to our country. If we had leaders, they would have removed the threats a long time ago.
>>>>
>>>>That's like saying the ATF eliminates all the deaths caused by alcohol, tobacco, or guns.
>>>>
>>>>Really, all other drugs don't even compare to that kind of devastation.
>>>>
>>>>And let's not forget, herion is really bad, but doctors readily give out morphine, Vicodin and oxycontin (the later of which is merely synthetic herion).
>>>
>>>So heroin ought to be OK too, right?
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>>Probably not.
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>>Tho, there's an argument to be made that it'd be a lot safer if it were legal.
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>>
>>>>Methamphetimine is terrible, but Ritalin, a synthetic meth, is what makes our kids normal.
>>>>
>>>
>>>So Meth ought to be OK too, right?
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>>
>>Meth isn't good. At least, not the bath tub meth. Take a little Adderall. It's just clean speed.
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>>I think I'd side on the argument where meth is a nasty epidemic and we could have avoided it by not criminalizing cocaine.
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>>(Meth is a cheaper, longer lasting stimulant analogous to cocaine.)
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>>
>>
>>>>Get off it.
>>>>
>>>>People send their lives down the tubes just as fast with video games as they do with pot.
>>>>
>>>Monday the cops had to get here in a hurry to get a couple of junkies off the tracks (rail tracks in KC) before they actually did manage to have a head-on with a train which is what they were attempting to do.
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>>
>>Junky != pot head
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>>
>>>Substitute junkies that with video gamers - same thing huh?
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>>
>>I'm just saying the same problem drugs have is just as readily seen in people that tune out of reality with their video games, which we celebrate as a culture.
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>>
>>>>The only difference is even a retard can grow pot, which means people can take care of their own needs instead of make a giant corporations profitable.