And Cigarettes are legal, too

Note to all the drug legalization proponents. Organized crime and cigarette smuggling. Tobacco, at least for now, is legal to own, use, grow, and you can even carry it onto school grounds. Smoking may give you a nice assortment of illnesses, but as far as I know it does not impair your ability to hold down a job (well, maybe liquid oxygen dispenser ...) or care for yourself or your family, or make you a hazard behind the wheel. Now, the article is quite clear that the smuggling efforts (and murder, etc) peak with high cigarette taxes and ebb when the taxes are lowered. No doubt the legalization folk are mumbling about how legal drugs *would* be cheaper, so there. Yeah, but how cheap is cheap enough for people whose teeth have fallen out and can't find any work at all because of their drug addictions? And you just know that the state will find drug taxes irresistible. Plus age restrictions, just like cigarettes, and you know kids will always obey the laws. Just like they do now. So that's at least two sizable populations that can't go to to the Hallucinogens-R-Us store and load up, aaaannd ..... we're right back to the criminal profit motive again.

Completely leaving out the bit about me not wanting to fund in any way, shape, or form all the medical issues the drug users will have, and want treatment at the emergency room for, that RIGHT NOW I pay for. The war on drugs is ongoing just like the war on murder. Deal.