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REPLY #11 TO
"DRUGS"




(R) does making drugs Illgal change the usage pattern? You stated in the beginning that alcohol prohibition was found to not work, and since it's re-legalization, things have been ok (not exact wording), answer this: The government realized after a few short years that alcohol prohibition didn't work, yet here we are going on 80 YEARS of marijuana prohibition, and other than the half million people in jail for it, who has stopped smoking?
(MB) Perhaps you should consider that if the prohibition of alcohol only survived a few years and the prohibition of marijuana has survived for close to a century that marijuana laws are actually more viable than you wish to believe. Also, the move to enact alcohol prohibition was driven by the unique morality of religious temperance groups while support for marijuana prohibition is on more solid ground.
    Does making drugs illegal change the usage pattern? Absolutely! I don't think that even the staunchest marijuana advocates would claim that marijuana use would hold steady or even decrease if pot was legalized. All of the people who are currently using it would still use it and some may likely increase their usage as the supply increased and became more affordable and the deterrent effect of fines or imprisonment vanished. In addition, the elimination of the current legal deterrent would make it more likely that new users would emerge. Is this something that would be in the best interest of the general public?
    If you are going to advance the fact that people continue to smoke pot despite the laws against doing so as an argument in favor of legalization, you would also be supporting decriminalization of *anything* that people still do in significant numbers despite the spectre of fines and/or jail time. Legalization of marijuana will have to be done on its own merits.



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