I did not watch this report last night, but the text makes sense. John Stossel has defined the problem in a way that I like. Just Say No: Government’s War on Drugs Fails

We know the terrible things drugs can do. We've seen the despair, the sunken face of the junkie. No wonder those in government say that we have to fight drugs. And polls show most Americans agree. Drug use should be illegal. Or as former "drug czar" Bill Bennett put it: "It's a matter of right and wrong."

But when "right and wrong" conflict with supply and demand, nasty things happen. The government declaring drugs illegal doesn't mean people can't get them, it just means they get them on the black market, where they pay much more for them.

"The only reason that coke is worth that much money is that it's illegal," argues Father Joseph Kane, a priest in a drug-ravaged Bronx neighborhood in New York City. "Pure cocaine is three times the cost of gold. Now if that's the case, how are you gonna stop people from selling cocaine?"

Kane has come to believe that while drug abuse is bad, drug prohibition is worse — because the black market does horrible things to his community. "There's so much money in it, it's staggering," he says.

Orange County, Calif., Superior Court Judge James Gray agrees with Kane. He spent years locking drug dealers up, but concluded it's pointless, because drug prohibition makes the drugs so absurdly valuable. "We are recruiting children in the Bronx, in the barrios, and all over the nation, because of drug money," he says.

Besides luring kids into the underworld, drug money is also corrupting law enforcement officers, he argues.

Cops are seduced by drug money. They have been for years. "With all the money, with all the cash, it's easy for [dealers] to purchase police officers, to purchase prosecutors, to purchase judges," says Oliver, the Detroit police chief.

This should remind us of prohibition. That worked just as well. The article goes on to consider the Dutch experience in legalizing marijuana. They have seen a drop in adolescent pot smoking.

This story should make us think. While drugs can devastate lives, how many more lives are devastated by their illegality? This question should boil down to logical trade offs - risks and benefits of legalization. It seems like a 'no brainer' to me.