<p>…I’m pretty sure that using any method of drug legalization would involve age limits. No one is proposing that children should be able to walk into a store and buy heroin. </p>
<p>I would wholeheartedly be for legalization of all drugs for those over 21, as a drug user who is under 21. As it stands, it is easier for most kids to get marijuana or any other drug than alcohol. Drug dealers don’t have age limits. Yes you would have some underage use, like underage drinking. Think about where underage drinking happens though - high schools and colleges, places where drugs are currently readily available. So it wouldn’t be all that different in those places. But legalization would crack down on young children doing drugs, which I think everyone can agree is not a good thing. </p>
<p>Furthermore, if you don’t do drugs, it’s not for the sole reason that they are illegal. If someone wants to do drugs, they won’t be stopped by them being illegal. So people wouldn’t start doing drugs because drugs were legalized. If heroin was legalized tomorrow, would you do it? No. I wouldn’t either and neither would most of the population. If someone would, they would be doing it already so it being illegal really won’t stop them. Maybe you might smoke weed if it was legalized, maybe more people would do that (but probably not many), but that doesn’t really hurt you. People don’t want to do drugs that can really hurt them for the most part and if they do they’re going to regardless.</p>
<p>It would also take the criminality out of drug sales - no more drug dealers because it would all be legal. No more violent ghettos fueled by drugs. Are there such things as sketchy alcohol pushers? No. It would be purchased legitimately. It could be taxed giving insane profits to the country. The violent drug cartels in Mexico would disappear. The drug industries would not be huge violent gang-run schemes, but legal industries just like the alcohol industry. Drugs would be purer, which would make them safer (if that doesn’t make sense, when you take a pill you would know what was in it, whereas on the street it could be mixed with a variety of bad things). </p>
<p>People actually also don’t want to hurt themselves, even drug users. If drugs were legalized we would probably see more people using milder versions of drugs. For example, when Prohibition was lifted there was less drinking of liquor and more drinking of beer and wine, which is safer. In that same vein, we would likely see more people smoking opium instead of shooting heroin, or chewing coca leaves instead of smoking crack.</p>
<p>It’s a little pointless though because all drugs will never be legalized. However, you really only get the full benefits if ALL drugs are legalized, because if something is illegal it causes violence and gangs making profits from it, and also there’s no regulation which makes it even more dangerous. If we were truly committed to personal freedom as well as protection of the individual, we would legalize all drugs. But if the US legalized drugs there would still be a lot of smuggling problems (although lots of money from drug tourism!) and across-the-border crime, so the only real way everything would be fixed is if ALL countries legalized all drugs.</p>