Legal drugs are treated with respect by our society. Multinational corporations promote these drugs via billion-dollar ad campaigns. Drug companies are owned by us in our retirement plans. Doctors are pestered by us to prescribe us drugs. Celebrities are worshipped as they take prescription drugs even if they occasionally die from them. But the vast majority of drug users lead normal lives.
On the other hand, we have a literal war on illegal drugs. Hard core criminal organizations manufacture the drugs and push them. Our police spend untold hours and billions of dollars fighting battles with drug dealers and users. The high cost and underground nature of the drugs cause addicts to commit crimes to buy drugs. Users are arrested and locked away with hardened criminals. Some addicts die. But the vast majority of drug users lead normal lives.
It is time to gut our insane drug laws. They do not work, cost us a crazy amount of money, and destroy lives unnecessarily. Portugal has proven that making all drugs legal and working on prevention and treatment is more cost effective and results in less abusive use. While it would be mind boggling if this country came to its senses and made all drugs legal, we must at least end the ineffective and counter-productive "war on drugs" and start to seriously work on helping addicts instead of punishing them.
