Consider this:
Hard drugs (of the kind I recommended to Thane for his stress problems) are not a cause, but a symptom; let's face it, your life has to be pretty crappy if you're prepared to spend it blowing $500 a day on a habit that requires you to do some fairly awful things to get that $500.
Do you advocate legalising heroin and crack?
[As noted in another post, I think the genie's out of the bottle on the gun issue.]