Yes, almost all recreational drugs should be legalized. For much the same reasons. As shown in that study, alcohol is far and away one of the very fewest of the

Yes, almost all recreational drugs should be legalized. For much the same reasons. As shown in that study, alcohol is far and away one of the very fewest of the most damaging recreational drugs, ranking up with meth, heroin, and crack, and in some ways even worse than them. But, of course, our attempts at prohibition of alcohol proved disastrous, as our attempts at prohibition of other drugs has been turning out to be as well. And while the prospect of allowing meth, crack, and heroin to be legally used by adults is likely enormously disconcerting to most people it shouldn't be. Largely that is due to the bias of familiarity. The problems of alcoholism are familiar to us as a society, they've been with us a long time and we know them well. Are comfortable with them even if we don't like them. And we accept that alcoholism and other problems of alcohol use can destroy families, destroy lives, and have fatal consequences, aside from its propensity to cause disgusting side effects (vomiting, loss of bowel control, pissing oneself, a generally slovenly or disheveled appearance and a rank smell due to lack of personal hygiene combined with the smell of booze, and so on). Yet the dangers and grotesqueries of, say, meth use have yet to worm their way into such a position of familiarity and comfort in the heart of the collective conscious. Which enables the public to decry its use, shun it from polite society, and force users outside the boundaries of the law. Aside from all of the very good practical reasons to roll back drug prohibition there is an even more fundamental reason: the cause of liberty. People should and must be allowed to make mistakes. Being "allowed" to engage only in activities chosen from a list of behaviors that have been determined to be safe and unobjectionable activities is not freedom. But that is much of the nature of drug prohibition, the idea that the collective (the government) is in charge of what you can and can't do with your life and your body, not you. Without the ability to make choices that others, perhaps even lots of others, disagree with or object to there can be no freedom. The law should come into play only in so far as people cross the line into actively harming others, otherwise it should not intrude on how people decide to live their lives.