A SMART PILL

I've been know to say "I can't prove to you marijuana is a gateway drug, but its not like taking a smart pill either"

Interesting article on marijuana legalization today from George Will.
"As the eminent scholar of drug policy Mark Kleiman once said: Society can choose to have the problems of drug legalization or those of prohibition. But given those troublesome plant-derived molecules, society cannot choose not to have problems."

So I followed the link about this "eminent scholar of drug policy" and found this, regarding Mr Kleinman:
"Kleiman’s opposition to drugs was not puritanical, and if you told him you enjoyed an occasional drink with dinner or every few months smoked weed at a party, he’d shrug. His opposition to intoxicants was in recognition of the fact that while the typical vice can be enjoyed safely by most users, a majority of the market demand is from a minority of addicts. For instance, three in four American adults drink, but most drinks are consumed by the one in eight American adults who drink to excess. Similarly, there are far more occasional and basically responsible users of illegal drugs than there are drug addicts, but it is the drug addicts who consume most drugs. Even if the typical user gains some benefit at minimal cost from occasional mild intoxication, most of the aggregate use is from people who meet the clinical definition of addiction disorder: They are unable to stop or cut back despite their drug use creating problems at home, school, or work."

Read that again...
"Even if the typical user gains some benefit at minimal cost from occasional mild intoxication, most of the aggregate use is from people who meet the clinical definition of addiction disorder: They are unable to stop or cut back despite their drug use creating problems at home, school, or work."