Their only purpose is to enforce fundamentalist lifestyle values upon the general population. It has nothing to do with maintaining safety, order or justice. These agencies do not belong in a free society. I'm not a libertarian, far from it, but for some government activities there is absolutely no justification.
Disease and crime are hugely damaging to society. You might (in internet-"libertarian" fashion) decide that people should be free to damage themselves, and that health insurance providers should be free not to cover those people (and you'd have a completely logical rationale for being a selfish asshole), but how do you account for the additional costs to the security infrastructure from the crime?
With socialized security infrastructure (state run police and prisons) everyone pays for the damage that drug manufacturers and importers are doing to society. Without it (private security/insurance) you could decide that premiums for those services will just follow the increase in drug-related crimes in a given locality, but then you've completely given up on solving the root causes, and we'd just have the same kind of security profiteering surrounding drug use we see now, minus a whole lot of effectiveness.
Do all of the people who resist addiction and want to have a decent level of security in their lives and possessions move to gated communities? What about the ones who are not so privileged? Do we just give up on entire neighborhoods of addicts and those too poor to leave.
Certainly, prosecuting users and low-level dealers with hugely inflated mandatory minimums is a crime against them and their families. Certainly, criminalizing production of tobacco, alcohol, or cannabis inhibits the potential for economy surrounding them without much benefit to society.
Is the value of preventing the import and production of hard and/or impure drugs like methamphetamine and the damage that their use does to civilization not as certain?
It seems pretty obvious to me that having social infrastructure surrounding drug laws and their enforcement, and treatment for addicts is hugely beneficial - society benefits as a whole so everyone should pay, and there is definitely potential for benefit greater than the costs (I suspect that even as bad as we are screwing this up now, we are past the break-even). It seems pretty obvious to me that we must disconnect sentencing from politics by making mandatory minimums unconstitutional - judges and juries must be free to sentence as they see fit. And it seems pretty obvious to me that we must refocus law enforcement on the sources of drugs, not the users or dealers - who are mostly victims of social effects and mental behaviors which are outside their control (this is very likely to mean reduced spending in total surrounding drug law enforcement).
Additionally, your depiction of the societal effects of drugs is pretty ridiculous ("if drugs are legalized does everyone that avoids addiction need to move to a gated community for safety?"). Upon legaliztion, those who suffer from addiction could receve proper help much more easily, and long term outcome studies could be conducted far more effectively. This, coupled with regulation (which would foster safety standards and quality control), would result in greatly reduced negative societal impacts. Also, drugs which have been proven to have very little benefit and great potential for harm (meth, heroin, pcp, crack, etc) could remain illegal..
I'm not sure what I wrote that makes you think I'm not aware of this. I definitely think that most drug's we're currently enforcing should not be scheduled how they are.
That said, have you seen what percent of crime in low-mid income neighborhoods is meth-related? At least around here, it's not very pretty, and I definitely will continue to support putting behind bars the folks that produce and import those types of substances, and damage communities for profit.
And yep, I totally agree that some of the harder drugs can be extremely damaging, and that those who profit from them are pure scum.
a) The majority of recreational drug users are not addicts. There are many more aspects to addiction than the mere substance.
b) The majority of recreational drug users are productive members of society. That includes many addicts.
c) Despite the criminalization, drugs are readily available in every Western country, and have been for generations. The negative side-effects you're trying to scare people with would already be in full swing.
Instead, we only see escalating negative effects in countries that wage a "war on drugs". In countries with liberal drug policies, the impact of drug use on crime and healthcare is so negligible it's not even an issue anymore. Even in the current climate where every instance of a small minority leaning disproportionally on social security or healthcare is a major issue.
The number of dysfunctional drug addicts in an otherwise well functioning society is extremely marginal, a load that society can easily handle, especially if the entire socially destructive and expensive apparatus of drug enforcement is disbanded.
I'm not even going to bother to score the obvious points regarding alcohol.
I agree that most drugs that are currently criminalized should probably not be. I believe that use and addiction (for any substance) should not be criminalized, as that only compounds the problems users have, does not help them recover or contribute.