Response to "Wars and Drugs Don't Mix"

This is my response to a fellow classmate's post about the war on drugs.

You can read the original post by Michael Martinez here: Wars and Drugs Don't Mix

My response: "While I feel like Michael makes some valid points, after reading this post I feel like I'm left with more questions than answers. Mostly, I needed more specifics on the drugs that we're talking about here. If we're speaking only about a soft drugs like marijuana then I absolutely agree in legalization efforts for this drug. Personally, I don't understand why it was ever made illegal. I tend to think it was all to do with early pharmaceuticals and trying to find a way to dominate an industry. That's not the point I'm trying to make, however. While marijuana is a mostly harmless drug that has many beneficial health benefits, I don't believe in legalizing harder things like cocaine, heroin, DMT (or other hallucinogens), etc etc. These drugs are illegal for good reason- they're incredibly harmful! Legalizing these drugs will NOT make our crime rates go down or whatever. It would give people easier access to awful drugs that result in horrible behavior and severe deterioration of health. There's no way to argue for the safe or beneficial use of these drugs. They aren't something that should ever be used recreationally no matter how well-educated you are about them, there is no safe way to take them. Things like cocaine and heroin are extremely addictive- and heroin in particular is incredibly lethal. The thing about these drugs is that it's not the purity that drives further addiction, it's the drug itself. An addicted user will always want more and more. Say that we live in a parallel universe where the highly addictive and harmful drugs are legal. One day a user goes to their 100% legal distributor and the distributor says "No, I'm sorry but you've reached your legal amount for the month. I can't give you anymore." Where is this highly addicted person going to turn? Right back to the streets. When it comes to highly addictive drugs, there will always be people who want more and more. There is no legal precedence for considering this in a real life situation. The fact of the matter is that, with few exceptions, there's a good reason that most illegal drugs are illegal. Like I said, the only illegal drug that should be legalized is marijuana. Recent research has definitely shown some awesome benefits, so how could you not support medicinal marijuana?"