Featured The Failed War On Drugs

Be that as it may the first step is being able to sit down and have an open intelligent rational discussion about the pros and cons of drug prohibition.

So far those in favor of criminalzation have shown they are unwilling to do that. Relying instead on insults, emotionally charged rhetoric and accusing those in favor of legalization of wanting to bring about the end of society.

You cannot know for certain that "legalization would have an overall net effect of making society worse than it is now". At best that's only conjecture that those in favor of criminalization use to limit or end the prospect of having an open intelligent rational discussion about the pros and cons of drug prohibition. But that's all it is unless it can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. So far no one that I know of has been able to do that.

 

From the first article.

The research took place after an explosion of medical-marijuana shops in Colorado, but before voters passed measures to legalize the sales and use of recreational marijuana to adults 21 and older. Dr. George Sam Wang, an author of the study and a clinical instructor in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital, said he had not seen any additional increases in children’s marijuana exposure since recreational sales began the first of this year.

From the second article.

-- Lesson Number 2: We must build an environment in which every child can learn and thrive. That must include funding public education to heighten awareness about the harms of marijuana. Every child can succeed when adults believe in them and create safe communities for them.

I would add that having open and honest discussions with our children based on actual facts will do more to keep them away from dangerous drugs than lying to them as the govt suggests parents do or to keep using the scare tactics, threats, insults and conjecture the "keep it illegal" crowd has attempted to do which so far has utterly failed.

Why Smoking Rates Are at New Lows

The smoking rate among adults in the United States has dropped again, an encouraging trend that experts on smoking cessation attribute to public policies like smoke-free air laws and cigarette taxes, as well as media campaigns and less exposure to smoking in movies.

Eighteen percent of American adults were cigarette smokers in 2012, according to a report released last week by the National Center for Health Statistics, down from 18.9 percent the previous year. From 2009 to 2012, the rate dropped to 18 percent from 20.6 percent, the first statistically significant change over multiple years since the period spanning 1997 to 2005, when the rate fell to 20.9 percent from 24.7 percent.

“The fact that we’re below this theoretical sound barrier of 20 percent is important,” says Stanton A. Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of the university’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. “This data shows that the whole premise that there is this hard-core group, where no matter what you do you can’t get them to quit, is just not true.”

Doctors and researchers who study smoking cessation point to a number of factors that may play a role in the latest drop.

“Now there is a strong evidence base about what works and what doesn’t work,” Dr. Glantz says.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/why-smoking-rates-are-at-new-lows/

Here's a copy of an old book circa 1928 I hope you can find the time to read.

http://www.whale.to/b/bernays.pdf

While you are reading it ask yourself this. If the public mind can be so easily persuaded into accepting a "drug culture" why can't it be just as easily persuaded to reject it?