Here is my take on it: Rebellion is a big part of teenage life (especially if the child is from a broken home). There is an urge to break rules, to question aut

Here is my take on it: Rebellion is a big part of teenage life (especially if the child is from a broken home). There is an urge to break rules, to question authority and to disobey the law. But the urge to rebel varies from one individual to the next. Trying banned drugs is one way to rebel against the system. You say: > 1. It's been medically shown that some drugs cause aggressive and violent behavior. Why should we allow an increase in that kind of behavior if it could be largely prevented as it is now? How do you know that some drugs cause aggressive and violent behaviour? It's because it's in the list of banned substances. Banning gives it the popularity it would have never gotten in the first place. There are plenty of pharmaceutical drugs that are equally or possibly more potent than the list of banned substances but are not in common knowledge primarily because those drugs haven't been banned. That's one big advantage of legalization. It removes these drugs from the bucket list of rebellious things to do. The novelty wears off with time. > 2. If all drugs become legalized, what's to prevent addiction to certain drugs sweeping across an entire population and devastating productivity? If drugs are more accessible it seems likely that more people would experiment with and become addicted to more debilitating drugs. That isn't going to happen the way you think. Those who weren't going to dope in the first place wouldn't be inclined to anyways. That leaves the others who were already addicted. These people always got the adulterated/spiked drugs from the peddler which put them at real risk of overdosing. At the very least, those addicted now can be taken care off by Government rehabilitation institutions that would be legally permitted to administer a clean doze of the drug in reducing amounts, slowly getting the addicted person off the dangerous drug if possible. > 3. It seems like whether drugs are legal or not, if you get addicted to some types of drugs you become effectively unable to earn an income. Even if legalizing drugs reduces the prices, aren't the people addicted to them still going to commit crimes to make the money they need since they still can't work normal jobs? Yes but it's going to stop the spiral of new people getting addicted. The danger here is the attachment of drugs with acts of rebellion. The only way to separate the two is by legalizing drugs. Also what is the Government gaining by prohibition? Instead of solving the problem of drug abuse, prohibition creates two big problems: 1. A thriving black market controlled by the Mafia. 2. No tax revenue for the Government and huge costs for enforcing Prohibition. Governments, in my opinion, should not concern with social issues. It should be purely legislative and administrative, only intervening during natural disasters or wars. The burden of solving social issues should rest only and only with the society. Currently, in all countries that have one or the other forms of Prohibition, the Government has taken over the burden from the society instead of letting the society/community self-regulate.