[blueerica]

Isn't there enough of a stigma to using cocaine, heroin, PCP that major pharmaceutical companies probably won't jump at the opportunity?

Those who are going to use and abuse drugs, in my personal experience and from the experiences of friends and family members who have gone down every path, do it regardless of obeying or breaking any laws. This just cuts out the criminal element. When there is an implicit danger and risk (i.e. Johnny Law), it raises the cost of the item on its own, and attracts an underground market that supports gangs and other criminals. Legalization takes away their business.

Smoking tobacco is legal, and yet as we have become more educated, more and more, people either never start or are quitting an addiction that many say is more powerful than heroin. I don't see why the same could be true for the theoretically less-addictive other drugs. We're taught drugs are wrong, not only because they're illegal, but for what it does to our health and our lives.