Fredrick Cambell, an attorney, stated legalizers' spirit perfectly by stating, "Legalization would not mean that addictive drugs would be legally available to everyone. The purpose of legalization would be to place better controls on access to such drugs. Addiction would be recognized as a disease or physical addiction . . . For non-addicts, the substances would remain illegal in the some way that it is now criminal to sell or use prescription drugs without a prescription." Legalization simply means the entire illicit drug trade would become legal: making, buying, using, pushing, possession. Yet as any pharmacist or drug company knows it can be regulated. If heroine and cocaine were legalized, and were available over the counter, the price must be held to government intervention to be sure addicts or anyone else can easily afford all they want. Illicit drugs are considered immoral not because they harm people; plenty of approved substances have that drawback. Illicit drugs are immoral because users feel better than normal and because people fear the allure. If we want a free society to function, we must permit people to make bad decisions and suffer the consequences. People have a right to ruin their lives. We might even benefit from a little humility when judging people, finding paths to happiness different from our own. The truth is the tougher enforcement gets, the worse trouble will get. The answer is to let go.

Dangerous drugs, however, must be accepted as a part of the American heritage. Just as Prohibition created organized crime, today's drug laws keep organized crime alive. Before drugs were illegal, Americans handled them with few problems and treated them as a fundamental right in their production, distribution, and consumption. All of the hard drugs were legal before 1914, and there were few addicts. Drug houses did...