Reply #173: That's because alcohol was already in the mainstream. [View All]

[Kipling]

As it stands, the average person is not a drug user. Keeping them illegal (the really destructive ones) keeps it this way. If we legalise drugs, they would become ever more popular, as they did in the 19th century, completely destroying the economy and any type of civil society.
Furthermore, if we legalise them, crime will soar because, unlike alcohol, drugs are addictive. Crimes are connected to drugs that people just wouldn't commit for a beer. Organised crime wouldn't fall - it would go legal.
I dread a day when heroin is legalised. Expect to see multinational corporations ploughing billions trying to develop ever more addictive formulas. Expect to see product placement, advertising, etc trying to get ever greater numbers hooked. And don't for a minute think that any type of stigma will remain attatched to addiction, not with the multinational money behind ad campaigns. Not only will crime, particularly violent crime and theft, rise, but life expectancy will also plummet. An ever-increasing number of people will crawl along in the half-life of drug addiction. One possibility is a two-tier society, where the addicted who make up most of the population will be ruled by a clean elite who can use them as slaves, knowing they'll do absolutely anything for a quick fix.