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As a former employee of the Los Angeles DA's Office's Organized Crime Task Force, I am firm believer in the legalization of drugs. It is really the dealers who need to be taken out, not the users. In the time I spend doing preliminary hearings in our court system, most of my drug use cases were incidental possession charges (i.e., usually homeless people, people who already had strikes under CA's 3 strikes law or people who were known gang members got nervous when they saw the cops and tried to dispose of their drugs [a.k.a. drop cases], or people were being busted for something else and they were in possession when apprehended). Our officers did not do "stings" to bust users. That would be a complete waste of resources.
I do have concerns about the legalization of certain drugs (i.e., heroin) and what would happen to our prescription medication system if drugs were legalized. I believe in our prescription medication system b/c without it we would likely cause the bacteria to mutate faster and make it more difficult for the doctors to treat us when we are really sick.
UF_Pike, while I disagree with what happened to your buddies, drug use is illegal and people who regularly break the law have to expect that if they break certain laws on an ongoing basis they might be apprehended. If that many of your friends have been arrested lately you might want to examine who you are friends with.
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