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Legalize all the drugs, tax 'em like alcohol, and regulate 'em the same way -- and have the exact same penalties for operating machinery like motor vehicles under the influence.
Right now you have all the criminal element associated with them because illegality makes them extremely expensive for a number of reasons. Legal production of things like marijuana, cocaine, etc., would be very, very cheap and the criminal element would wither away quite quickly; why pay $100 a kilo, or ten times that, for something you can get at the corner store for pennies a hit?
Also, the drugs involved are a crapshoot in terms of safety and quality. They can poison you (in very unintended ways), spread disease, all sorts of other un-amusing things which would be DRASTICALLY reduced by legal and open production with the same kind of regulation and monitoring we have on other food and drug industries.
We appear to have learned nothing at all from Prohibition. Let's change that.
