And in the same vein, comedians such as Ron White and the late Rodney Dangerfield smoked marijuana because of chronic joint pain. So, while drugs do a lot of harm most of the time, they can be used for good as well.
Pot's a very complicated situation compared to the others. It can be beneficial medically, after all. Plus, I do believe it's gotten a bad rap because of yellow Journalism. I wouldn't touch the stuff myself, but all deeply criminalizing it does is shove minimum offenders in prison, overcrowding and wasting tax dollars. When it comes to that stuff, it's just like smoking and alcohol. Prohibition does nothing but promote crime, as the 1920's proved. Much like tobacco and alcohol, how about legalizing that and just putting a deep tax on it to fund something in the vein of anti-tobacco/drink responsibly programs. Anything done in excess, drinking, eating, smoking, shopping, sex...etc CAN harm you no matter what in the long run. I don't want to get on a whole debate about that, though... just mentioning a side note.
Actually, I think how the country goes about even the dangerous stuff is just a waste of time and a crap load of money. The government could spend millions of dollars seizing a couple thousand bucks of the stuff, and all the cartels and crime boss heads do is just raise street prices to make up for it. We have drug legislation that punishes the addicts worse than the actual bad guys who sell the stuff. if this stuff has to be illegal, they really need to junk the system and start over again. I believe in the saying, rules keep honest people out because if you're a crook you sneak in anyway. Some people will, regardless of the dangers they know are present, keep using. Why not give them a safer environment to do it in, instead of letting gangs shoot everyone up over it?
But then again, look at the legal, prescription stuff in this country. Sleeping aides that make you drive in your sleep? Anti-depression medication that causes people to get even worse and kill themselves? Easy to abuse prescription pain killers? Even the legal "safe" stuff isn't good.