>Secondly, your assumptions that "most" people cannot handle
>drinking or gambling responsibly is false. If you use as a
>definition for responsibilty not having any criminal/legal
>repercussions for your indulgence in either activity then in
>fact most people who enjoy these activities are doing so
>resonsibly. This definition is not perfect but I feel for
>such a discussion it is sufficient. I see no reason why legal
>use of marijuana would not result in a similar proportion of
>responsbile vs irresponbile use in the long run.

This definition misses out on most of the more serious costs associated with drinking in gambling. There is a huge "unseen" cost on society with both these activities, from lost production due to a 'hangover' from the night before, to the worry that is associated with not being able to cover your expenses because you spent your paycheck gambling or drinking. Think how grouchy you were the last time money was tight around your house. Maybe, I've viewing these things a little differently since I'm a parent, but neither drinking or gambling are family friendly activities, so any time you spend doing these is time you don't spend with your family. Heck how many kids are out there because one both of the parents were drinking before the kid was concieved, and then how many of those end up in one parent households? None of these things are illegal, but they are all a burden on society.

On top of this the number of people that are actually caught doing something illegal vs the number that are actually doing it is rather small. Think of the number times that someone you know has driven drunk, vs the number of times they have been caught. Hell I had kids in my high school class that went from Junior high to graduation that partied darn near everyweekend, and never got caught. How many people playing CF smoked or are smoking pot, how many have been cited for something drug related?

I too believe our current system of handling drug use is flawed, I also know that I don't have the answer to how to fix the problem, or heck how even to best handle the situation. I generally consider myself a libertarian, so if you want to do something in the privacy of your own home, hey go ahead. Generally, I think government should keep it's nose out of peoples private lives. Too many have let the government become there parent, either by telling us what the legal limit is to drive after we've been drinking to social security because we aren't responcible enough to save money for our retirements. So what I'm asking is at what point do we as a society say hey there's too many of you idiots out there that can't figure out how to save some money for your retirement so we'll do it for you.