Legalize them, but then tax the hell out of them? Do you treat a patient who stumbles into an ER in a drug induced stupor? What if the "customer" asks for enough drugs to kill themselves? Do you sell it to him?

Also, cigarettes seem to run a course where society condemns them, and then some "rebel" smokes one in a PR-event, and then they're cool all over again to the youth.

Perhaps the solution should be for a cigarette smoker to have to take care of a lung cancer patient full-time for about 6 months. And perhaps have a "low-level" addict ( marijuana ) to have to watch someone die from a heroin or cocaine/crack overdose in the ER. If addicts worked the ER, then maybe, just maybe...

If you legalize drugs, then there has to be some things in place. Like whether or not they are refused medical treatment in the ER if they OD. Like what you do with pregnant moms on crack and their kids.

I'm all for rehab, but I want Dr. Phil rehab (like time in the ER managing drug addicts and watching people die from drugs and guns ), not some pansy wanzy group therapy.

<RANT ON>
Then again, if I were king for a year or two, prisoners would be picking cotton, pounding rocks, and the death row guys would be on the ground in Iraq as "front line soldiers" for our military invasion, provided they were not insane. For those who refuse to serve in the high risk operations in the military, death row prisoners get 2 appeals, but the sentence must be carried out within year of the original conviction.

Addicts get to buy drugs, but the hospital is not allowed to revive them if they O.D. If a drug addict kills someone or commits a crime of robbery or higher while high (accidental or on-purpose), they get the death penalty.

CEO's, CIO's, CFO's, etc. who "cook the books" get jail time, and I mean real jail time like Huntsville, TX or Angola, where 300 pound violent offenders turn them into ladies. All of executives assets (and I mean homes, cars, wife's jewelry, designer clothes, furniture, kid's gameboy, TV's, etc. ) are sold at auction unless the wife/kids could prove that they purchased the assets with money not received from the husband. No Florida bankruptcy homes. The wives and children are put on the street with 1 set of clothes and the help wanted pages from the newspaper.

Sex offenders / rapists get the death penalty for 1st offense, provided the evidence is incontravertable.

I would probably just enforce most of the "moral law" of the Old Testament.
<RANT OFF>

Glen Austin

How about revoking the citizenship of addicts and deporting them to a country where getting high IS legal?

For that matter, we could probably even afford to send $10,000 to the country willing to take them, to help defer some of their expenses. Jail is about $25,000 a year, so we could actually afford to send a lot of money. I can think of quite a few Eastern European cities or places in South America or Africa where their government would love to have $10,000 a person for each addict we send them.

If this is unreasonable, then how about setting up cities in this country where drugs and most other forms of vice are legal, and then making the crime to be high outside of those cities. We could start with most of the gambling cities, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, New Orleans, Shreveport.

You can probably name more cities where getting high would be legal.

Funny, I watched a commentary on the drug war on ABC News a few months back, and even the drug lords don't want addicts in thier town. Drug lords kill people who become addicted while working for them, and drugs are illegal to use in many cities where drug lords live. Using carries very severe penalties in these South American cities.

Glen Austin