Legalization of Drugs

Public opinion about drug use and drug abuse is difficult to ascertain. It would be completely impossible to live in an entirely drug-free society in that drugs help alleviate pain and misery, correct organic and social dysfunction, and treat disease. And yet, drug use and abuse can serve to create some of the very conditions that drug therapy seeks to control. Drugs create disease, damage organs and tissue, engender social and psychological problems, and create physical and interpersonal pain. Furthermore, drug use and abuse creates, at the social level, crime and criminal activities that the non-drug-abusing members of society deem unacceptable. The use of many drugs represents a crime, irrespective of the individual or social harms done by the drug or by the person under ...