Legalizing Drugs

In the United States, the drug war has been fought continuously for some time now, and is so far still showing no signs of slowing down. The question of whether or not certain drugs should be made legal has been debated for a good portion of time as well. At first glance, I was almost tempted to say that this would definitely not be a good idea, but as I thought about it and researched into it a little more, my stance solidified towards a more pro-legalizing mode, for a couple of reasons. First of all, a lot of the time it is frequently spoken by people that illicit drugs are "bad, dangerous, destructive" or "addictive," and that society has an obligation or a certain degree of "right" to keep them from the public. This seems pretty noble, and yet it doesn't matter where you look. Nowhere can you find reliable, objective scientific evidence that drugs (like marijuana, which is already prescribed in some states) are any more harmful than some of the other substances and activities that are currently legal, such as tobacco and alcohol. Who is to say that an addiction to the nicotine in tobacco is less harmful than the addiction to another substance? An addiction is an addiction. If people were simply and honestly concerned about the harmful affects of addiction, then they would also do away with tobacco and alcohol, which have for some reason been able to become a normal part of our everyday society!
Some people may think that by legalizing certain drugs, it would just create an absolutely chaotic American society with everyone taking advantage of abusing these drugs. On the contrary, I believe that the only people this would hurt would be the major drug dealers. The vast majority of people in the United States know about at least some harmful symptoms of taking large quantities of drugs and still would have their morals and ethics. Just because marijuana, let's say, is legalized doesn't mean that people would want to do it any more than they normally would because of their personal set of beliefs and conduct. If someone really wanted to take these drugs, then they would find a way anyway and this wouldn't change that fact. Also, it would end up hurting the multi-billion dollar underground black markets of drug cartels because it would put their businesses and profits much further down because no one would need to buy drugs illegally and it would put a stop to this problem. Basically, I just don't think that there is a justification for keeping certain substances illegal while others are known to also cause harmful effects in large quantities as well and also while the so-called "drug war" could be greatly minimized from the elimination of the drug lords' business.

http://blog.insourced.com/2009/03/legalize-drugs-to-create-new-jobs-eliminate-violence/
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200990501029