The irresponsible use of alcohol is a vice. It harms only the person who abuses alcohol. When someone harms someone else--while under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or while sober--it is a criminal act.

A person who sits in his home and quietly drinks himself to death has committed a vice. A person who has one drink and murders someone has committed a crime.

I work in law enforcement, and I've seen folks who live only for that next drink or that next high. I don't care what the sociologists say; it is not the alcohol or drugs that destroyed that person. That person, of his own free will, did it to himself. He can quit anytime, and there's a slough of people who will help him quit if he can't do it himself. If that person is happy living like that, well, that's his choice. I'm not his daddy, and neither is the government.

If drugs are re-legalized, I've no doubt that some folks will abuse them, just as they abuse them now. I also have no doubt that all those street gangs that depend on the drug trade will disappear overnight. Without drug money, there's nothing to keep them in business.

We would free half the jail and prison inmates, and reserve those spaces for real, violent criminals. Cops could quit trying to piss up a rope fighting the drug war, and go after the real criminals. Excise taxes from the sale of drugs (which, admittedly, I oppose on principle) could be an added bonus.

For more on the distinction between vices and crimes, I would recommend reading Vices Are Not Crimes, by Lysander Spooner.

Onward and upward,
airforce