Should the US Consider Decriminalizing Drugs?

Deciding to relax drug laws worked for Portugal; it apparently failed in the U.K. Could looser drug laws reduce crime in the United States? In 2001, Portugal became the first country in Europe to decriminalize personal possession of drugs; instead of sentencing someone to jail for drug use, citizens are offered drug therapy from a social worker, a ...

[XTC The Band]

It won't happen ,to many people depend on criminal drug laws for their employment! It would put so many people out of work, never mind if it would solve all kinds of issues crime, health, economic, etc

[pesky the real deal]

not only that but yankees are already moonstrucked, therefore this world do not need to see what would they do if they were toked up daily.

[EdSed]

The reason it failed in the UK appears to be because we got the worst of both worlds. It is typical of the muddle of this government. They loosened the law on possession, so usage went up. However, they failed to decriminalise its sale, so organised crime and dealing went up too. We had an entirely predictable loose-loose situation. There was no revenue gained from the legal sale of marijuana (which could be used for campaigns against smoking it). Now Professor Nutt and other experts have resigned, or been pushed out because they are disgusted by the foolish drug policies of this government.

I suspect that legalising Marijuana would be much the same as when prohibition of alcohol ended in the USA. Usage might have increased, but overall, crime and disturbances due to the substance’s illegality went down. The simple fact is that too many people betray this country by using marijuana to criminalise them all.

What evidence is there that the homogeneity of the society was the difference? It seems to me that this article’s author (K Davey) has completely misunderstood what can be inferred from the UK evidence.
http://www.ndsn.org/jan98/intl1.html
From:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04.n172.a04.h...
“More than half of all adults would like to see [cannabis] decriminalised or even legalised”- and that was 5 years ago.

It is important to be clear about the distinction between soft (class c) drugs and hard drugs. Obviously few people want heroin legalised.

[Janet]

There are more important things to go after than drug users.

[Kernunnos]

Legalise all illegal drugs worldwide, and make them available as cheaply as possible.

This will at once rid society of society of most criminal gangs, and also rid the genepool of it's stupidest people.

[mofedom101]

I have an inalienable right to put anything I want into my body and the legislators have taken that away. I don't want mommy and daddy government to have any say of what I can do with my body. The government thinks they have more rights to my body than i do.