The government has lost this war. It has cost us a great deal in terms of money, and freedoms. "Illegal" drugs do little permanent damage to the individuals who take them. Long term mandatory sentences destroy lives of peaceful, nonviolent citizens. This has become an insane war on the people, and we must stop it.

To save our children from drugs we must get drugs out of our schools. The only way to do that is to take the profit out of drugs by re-legalizing them. Pushers don't sell tobacco or alcohol in the schools because there isn't the profit margin that prohibition brings. If we're serious about saving our kids, we have to stop the pushers by slashing their profits. The War on Drugs can't even keep drugs out of our well guarded prisons – how can we be so naive to believe it can keep them out of our schools?

Making drugs illegal has driven up their prices a hundred fold. Addicts must steal to support their habit. People rarely steal to buy alcohol or cigarettes, even though these substances are addictive to. Decriminalizing drugs will end stealing and make our streets safer.

Death due to the use of drugs is not as serious as people have been led to believe. Alcohol and tobacco are both more addictive and harmful than marijuana and other street drugs. Only 7,000 people a year die from impure drugs or drug overdoses. Over 100,000 people a year die from alcohol related causes, and 300,000 per year die early from tobacco usage. Contaminated needles are the number one cause of transmission of AIDS in the U.S. Almost 80% of the drug related deaths would not occur if users had access to standardized doses and purity that legalization would bring.

The Drug War kills more people than the drugs themselves. Drug usage would have to go up eight times under re-legalization to even approach the current death toll. Since 15 to 20% of our population indulges in illegal recreational substances, everyone in the country would have to do drugs for re-legalization to be as harmful as prohibition.