if you're going to go that route you also have to take aim at the underlining cause of drug abuse (poverty). Let's face it, when we talk about the war on drugs hurting people for whom it's a medical condition we mean poor people. If you're even upper middle class and you're busted for drugs you can get into a treatment program in no time. It's the poors that go to jail for using.
But the thing is, what do you do with the massive underclass we have? They're uneducated and likely to stay that way because their schools are underfunded. If you try to raise taxes to pay for better schools even a .5% sales tax raise gets voted into oblivion. Then there's jobs, or the lack thereof. Without education they only thing they're suited for is factory work, but that's all in China. Then there's fast food, but after 30 years of wage stagnation + inflation it doesn't pay enough to keep one adult alive let alone a family.
So what then? We don't want to pay 'em, we won't give 'em birth control until they die out ( a good 30% of our country is opposed on religious grounds ). We cordon them office and they wallow in their own misery. Every now and then a few spill over and the cops come down on them like a ton of bricks and we all dance around like the church woman from SNL acting like this doesn't happen every day...
