>>I would much rather see those same tax dollars go towards education and structured rehabs in every locale...
Trouble is that kids these days know that drugs are bad but proceed regardless because they've added total self-indulgence to that sense of being bullet-proof that many of us shared. ;-) Even if you use shock tactics for education the effects are short-lived because so many kids believe that life is about doing whatever feels right at a given moment and that as long as you can afford it, there are no consequences in life.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
