Are you saying that we can trust the common idiot on the street (and believe me most humans are NOT responsible creatures), to have a bag of heroin in there hands for £2.50 and function normally and - more importantly - not to addicted.

Yes, I do understand that most drugs are not harmful, when i replied i made no mention of drugs being harmful. However, the everyday man i doubt could live normally and have a job and have a normal life and function well in society. That isn't to say that some people could, i don't doubt that, you yourself Nullific, are living proof that this is possible. However a LOT of human beings are very mentally weak people - they could not cope if given all these drugs into their hands. I have no doubt that someone who injects H into their view when their at home wont be just as productive the next morning - however, can we trust people to do just that?

The reality is these drugs are quite addictive, (I know they are not as addictive as Nicotine) but the fact of the matter is they are still addictive, and giving drugs out at a minial price will make people want to spend their lives at home spending their money on drugs all day. Bear in mind there ARE people who eat chocolate all day and they don't even recieve that much of a high from it.

NB: You will soon find me one of the most scrupulous people when it come to facts and figures. I don't swallow government bullshit well.

However, i SERIOUSLY don't beleive that legalising drugs would stop it from going in the hands of children. I go back to my previous comment:

"Consider:
David comes in to school: "Hey guys my dad and mum were doing this drug they bought in the local shop last night [lets say heroin], I took some, dudes, it was the most amazing thing I've ever done! I mean if mum and dad are doing it can't be that bad can it?"
In the kid's psychology his parents are both doing it, so why shouldn't he? Let's not go into educating children that it's bad to take this kind of drugs - because that would result in their COMPLETE distrust in the system if over 18's are able to get it.
And there you have it; a couple of people in David's year follow suit, bearing mind that it would be VERY easy to get your hands on heroin if it was sold in shops, and there you go - youve got a lot of people addicted to heroin.

And don't tell me that it's harder to get if its regulated - tobacco is regulated - and look how many kids smoke, i daresay half you use tobacco in your joints and your not 16/18 (depending on the country). Also you'd probably see a lot of dealing to kids, who simply buy from the local shop and resell to children.

And PLEASE: lets not go into the effectiveness of health warnings here, people - Imagine "Warning Heroin/crack/meth etc. may be harmful to your mental and physcial health - only over 18's should do this drug" . AS IF kids are going to listen to that when cigerettes are more harmful and they STILL don't, including adults + these drugs are some of the mose pleasurable experiences known to man, pretty tempting for a kid to ignore those warning - tobacco isnt. "

Come on now, we would have a lot of kids getting drugs from adults here. Now, now, I think the dealer we have now would start dealing to kids.

I mean imagine children in an age like that, they come home and see their parents injecting heroin, your saying there in a big poster that drug consuption is right, and your basically advertising it to kids, and beleive me, im sure that kids would want to try it if they saw their parents doing it.

Also in your quotes, there is a lot of words like "frequently", "often", "necessarily", "sizable portion", "most" if your planning on releasing ALL drugs to the common man, your going to have a lot of the "less frequently", "less often", "less necessarily" "less sizable portion" of people becoming a big problem. - This is of course provided that the guy is completely correct about everything but im sure he is correct things he said bearing in mind he DID say "MOST".

"only about 35 percent tried it and only about 19% became addicted."

19% is a large figure if we attribute that to worldwide audiance. Granted, addiction often results in damage only due to the law, but imagine 19% being addicted in the world becoming addicted (and probably a lot higher if we're talking about something that would become socially acceptable), your talking about millions of people here, not just about a couple of hundred soldiers (who are mentally stronger than the average person) are you COMPLETELY SURE that these millions would be able to come out of their addictions >mentally< and physically (less of a concern in pure drugs) SOUND? (If they do come out of it)

However when your comparing legalizing weed to legalizing Heroin/crack/meth i think that in a COMPLETELY different ball park.

I think we should go back to puffing on blunts rather than IVing H. However I do respect you Nul, and you are (as i said previously) living proof that people CAN take hard (as people like to call them) drugs occassionally. But CAN is a word that is only respective a few, and those with a good mind (which most humans don't).