The War on Drugs is a War on Americans

"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

That requires an end to laws against people doing things to be happy (elimination of Puritanism in our laws). Laws that are based on specific ideas of propriety are contrary to good government.

Treating drug addiction as a medical problem instead of a criminal problem will save at least 50,000 US lives per year.

Drug Scheduling must be revised such that drugs are not illegal because they are "Abusable." The only drugs that should be in Schedules 1 and 2 are those that are severely harmful or physically habituating and interfere with life.

As we learned in the 1880s, outlawing a drug increases the attraction to use of that drug. Any drug that is not more dangerous than Alcohol should not be restricted. Habituating drugs that do not prevent a normal life should not be restricted.

Dangerous drugs include PCP and any other drug that, when taken in a reasonable dose, causes more than 1% of people to become a danger to themselves or the people around them. Additionally, any drug that causes fatal or nearly fatal reactions in more than 1% of people who take the drug for the first time is dangerous.

Any drug determined to be safe and effective in an Industrialized Nation should be available for import to the US and use under prescription, if necessary. No separate US testing should be required, and if the drug is manufactured in the US, it should be as a generic.

Drugs that are safe when taken orally in reasonable doses should be made available as a generic oral formulation, even if the drug is dangerous when injected or inhaled. That is especially important for long-term substitutes for dangerous opioids.

Finally, drugs with at least a 10-year history of use by humans or animals, in any nation, without serious side effects should be legal for that use in the US. An example is DMSO (Dimethyl Sulfoxide), a widely used topical pain reliever illegal for human use in the US, but with over a century of veterinary use in the US (it cannot be tested in a double-blind study).

None of this means that manufacturing for sale or sale without a license of an intoxicating drug should be universally legal. States may require licenses for sale of a drug and may restrict the sale of a drug to minors.

None of this allows the use of a drug in a manner that causes a hazard to others (such as driving while intoxicated with alcohol, nicotine, or any other impairing drug).