Drug laws are not bad. The current state of drug laws in the states, however, is appalling. I believe, for instance, that some substances should always be strictly controlled / banned like Heroine or Cocaine for instance.
I believe Marijuana should be legal (at the VERY least, decriminalized) and treated similarly to alcohol and tobacco.
Psychedelics are clearly a gray area, they seem harmful but really not enough research has been done. Creative breakthroughs aside, I'm not really sure how addictive or destructive they are.
In summary, drug laws are not bad in general; they are just bad at the moment, in the U.S. specifically. It's just such a shame that democracy doesn't lend itself to perceived criminal leniency.
No politician looking to get elected is going to advocate taking it easier on criminals even if those criminals he wants to be easier on shouldn't even be criminals in the first place.
I blame Nixon. /endrant
Do a little research and you'll find that even for heroin and cocaine the harm done to society by their being illegal far exceeds any conceivable harm done by the drugs themselves. When and where cocaine has been legal, people drank tea from the leaves as a mild stimulant similar to caffeine. When heroin was legal people took it in pill form and addiction was safe and affordable - the main long-term documented negative effect of regular heroin use is constipation. Many people have lived a long and healthy and productive life addicted to these drugs in exactly the same way I've lived one nearly continuously addicted to caffeine (in my case, preferably administered in the form of Diet Coke - your tastes may vary).
When alcohol was illegal, whiskey was cheaper than beer and people went blind drinking wood alcohol; when alcohol was legal again the average potency of what was fashionable to drink declined. That same dynamic applies to every other drug - making a drug illegal makes a more potent, more dangerous product available where leaving it legal lets people use it far more safely - an outcome you can only be opposed to if you carry some sort of Victorian anti-fun meme or if you're convinced that everybody in the world is insane, untrustworthy and lacking in judgment except the angels we've found to regulate the rest of us.
I recommend the book Licit and Illicit drugs, which you can read for free here:
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cumen...
You could also just look up any of the drugs you're worried about in an old-fashioned paper encyclopedia.
That wording, including the use of present participle ('carrying') and plural-like word ('narcotics'), makes it sound like this was an ongoing activity with multiple doses.
He had one pill in his pocket. His story, that he'd just received it at the concert from which he was returning, with no intent for or history of use, is plausible. (Even if we assume he's shaded the story to make himself look better, the prosecution and damage to his livelihood was not based on any other evidence.)
Most people will not find someone completely unsympathetic as soon as they "straight-up break the law", especially if the discussion is about the law itself. The point of the article isn't that 'James' is innocent, but that the punishment is disproportionate, and (via the details of the required classes) often absurdly wasteful and mistargeted.
The fact that there may be other even more sympathetic stories doesn't weaken this one. Their stories are additive in the case against the drug war, not competing with each other for a rationed amount of available sympathy.
For example, some people are going to figure a licensed professional doctor in trouble for suspect prescriptions should have known better (and received a strong defense at trial). But, hearing about James' naive errors -- holding a single pill, consenting to the car search, relying on his lawyer and probation officer -- they may recognize mistakes they might themselves make, and sympathize more deeply.