>First off, hats off to you for taking care of foster children, especially the toughest lot. The world needs more generous and caring people like you!

Many thanks - but I burned out after 25 years and no longer do it....

Legalization of 'hard' drugs would certainly remove the 'forbiddenness' as you say. It would also remove some (if not all) of the criminal element now involved in importing and distributing these drugs - Prohibition is a good model for this. Judging from the effects of legalization or semi-legalization practiced in several European countries it WON'T reduce the addiction level much. And that's where the problems lie. At least with tobacco and alcohol the problems to the babies are fewer and (overall) less severe. Although it's a bad idea to drink or smoke while pregnant it usually takes a LOT of alcohol to cause Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, but it only takes one dose of crack to cause brain-damage in a baby.

And, of course, the fact that use of any of these drugs impairs the ability to reason - drunk drivers don't believe they're a danger on the road. If harsher laws kept people from driving drunk there would no longer be a problem in England or Sweden. And in the long run it's the innocent bystander who is hurt the most.

< steps off soapbox >
Barbara

>I guess I'm looking at the prospect of legalization as a possible method of preventing/minimizing future addicts. ..< snip > ...Forbiddenness is attractive... < snip >

>Maybe we fight fire with fire. You want drugs? Here, have all you want. It's hard to be a rebel when what you're doing is completely legal.
>
>As for the babies, I don't know what to do. Aside from the horrible problems with drug-addicted babies, there's also fetal alcohol syndrome, and low birth weight babies due to smoking. There are also problems with muliples, as in triplets of parents who did artificial insemination, and now have life-long problems due to intentionally creating a very high risk pregnancy (my cousin is going through this).
> - della