You think the negative impact of illegal drugs only exists because they're illegal? Wow...
No.
But the majority of the crimes related with illegal drug use are a result of the drugs being illegal in the first place.
The exact same things happened during the prohibition of alcohol.There are lots of bad things that can happen if you can take drugs, the same with alcohol or ingesting a chili dog.
Either all three are up to the consumer or none are, or you're being inconsistent.
It's so typical to blame the problems of the ghettos and slums of America on the government. If we were talking about china, then maybe I'd agree with you, but this is AMERICA... there's so much fucking opportunity in this country. People are handed free educations, and what to they do? They act like thugs and drop out of school and look for the easiest way to make money, which is always going to be the illegal way.
If you're referring to inner cities, then the reason that people turn to the selling and using of drugs is because there is too little opportunity, not too much. Thinking that blacks in inner city schools have it easy trying to compete with kids from affluent families in the suburbs that go to schools that aren't falling apart and filled with violence...then you're crazy.
And I don't know who is being handed free educations-if you make fantastic grades and score well on every entry test, you have a chance at competing for scholarships...but most students that end up going to college usually leave school with at least 30,000 in debt in student loans.
Some countries give things like free college and health care. We do not.
If you think legalizing drugs would suddenly turn all these drug dealers into honest people, you're wrong. If every illegal drug in America were suddenly legalized, the pharmaceutical and tobacco companies would instantly look to capitalize on it and create their own market, and then all the drug dealers would have to resort to some new form of crime to get by... do you know why people sell drugs? Because they have no education, no skills, and no experience, and that's the only market they can tap into. You don't see gangs running creating their own computer electronics to peddle, or manufacturing car parts do you? That's because things like that require skill and eduction. Selling drugs doesn't.
Again you're dealing with a symptom, not the root problem.
Of course drug dealers wouldn't turn into honest people, but the power that the controlling gangs have that use violence to control these substances across the US would be gone, no one WANTS to have to deal with a scary drug dealer, and would gladly buy it at a store or get it from a hospital/pharmacy-but many drug dealers aren't as sensationalized murderers that we see in the movies. Many do this activity because as you state, they have no other way to make a living, because they didn't have rich parents to send them to private universities, so their two choices are either:
1.)work at mcdonalds
2.)sell drugs
Choice one will barely provide for one person, and it certainly won't provide for a family, so they pretty much have to do this.
So the REAL problem, is that we don't aren't providing the kind of quality jobs here anymore.
So untill you fix that problem, and start giving people in inner cities quality educations, making things illegal will just ensure that drug dealers will forever stay in this underground black market business. Where as if it was legal, who knows maybe they could start a "Weed club" like a bar, or work for a company distributing, safe quality drugs like weed, the same as truck drivers for budweiser or watever.
But we also need to stop outsourcing all our manufacturing jobs and shit but watevs.
Legalizing drugs would just create new forms of crime, and lead to a hell of a lot more substance abuse then already exists in this country.
There is no evidence for this claim whatsoever. Again, we have prohibition as a perfect example. When we had to end prohibition of alcohol for public outcry, crime DECREASED, and people were able to drink at safe places and drink alcahol that was safe and clean.
It's very likely that most of the same would happen if drugs were made illegal.
There are likely to be some negatives, as we all live with the negatives that Alcohol, cigarettes, and fatty foods-we will live with these whether they are made legal or not, we just won't have all the extra crime that goes along with them.