> Society as a majority, at some point, wanted these drugs illegal.

Most likely, this is still the case. However, if you polled people on a case-by-case basis, I think you would find that a majority would not support a large number of cases regarding drugs. And, of course, if you suggested that only the people who oppose drug legality should contribute funding to the drug war, you would find a much smaller group of proponents.

> Government passed the law and society allowed it to happen (and to remain).

Isn't that just a blatant appeal to nature? Yes, society has "allowed" it to happen, in the sense that it has happened. But according to that usage, literally everything that has happened since society existed has been "allowed" to happen by society.

> The law says not to aid terrorists organisations. They aided a terrorist organisation. That's pretty far removed (in my opinion) from serving someone a cheeseburger that walks into your store.

They "aided" a terrorist organization by recommending that they cease being a terrorist organization. Giving food to a criminal is much more direct aid to criminal activity than urging a criminal to cease criminal activity.

> But throwing out ridiculous statements as opposition harms more than helps.

And I believe I have thrown out zero ridiculous statements thus far.

Then -- if people polled so believe -- they should get off their lazy goddamn asses and vote. We did have such a vote on marijuana recently in California, and we lost. We'll probably have another vote in 2016. But if all people are willing to do is run their mouths to pollsters, then we're going to have another 40 years of the war on drugs.

Showing that allowing people to smoke a bowl at will doesn't cause society to crumble will help when we discuss harm abatement projects for heroin, meth, etc.

The problem with voting is that the individual benefit of voting is almost certainly less than the individual cost of voting. To expect most people to educate themselves about political issues and vote is to expect most people to act irrationally.

If, on the other hand, individuals were able to choose to decrease their own taxes by whatever portion is used to the fund the drug war, I suspect people would be more educated about how the drug war works, and the drug war would have a lot less funding.

Conversely, if everyone voted on what car to manufacture, and only the winning car could be legally manufactured, I suspect people would do very little research of cars, and the winning car would be an awful car.

> The problem with voting is that the individual benefit of voting is almost certainly less than the individual cost of voting

I wonder if this has something to do with why Washington and Colorado are the first two states to legalize recreational marijuana? Washington switched to almost complete vote-by-mail a few years ago, so voting is pretty convenient [1]. In 2010, 98% of voters voted by mail, the highest percentage of any state. Colorado was the third highest vote by mail state, with 66% in 2010. (Oregon was second, with 97%). California was 45% (which was 4th place, behind Arizona at 52%, and just ahead of Montana at 41%...no other state has more than 25%).

[1] convenient if you have stamps. I have no outgoing mail except my ballot, and so do not stock stamps. For me, standing in line at the polling place has simply been replaced with standing in line at the post office to mail my ballot.

In San Mateo county, postage is prepaid, or you can drop the vote by mail ballot off at any polling location in the county. If you live here, you generally don't live or work far from a polling place.

You can drop vote-by-mail ballots off similarly in santa clara county. I'm not sure about sf.

I don't agree at all with your claim about voting, but even accepting it arguendo, voting to (and california has propositions so you vote directly on many things) legalize marijuana has clear benefits. You don't have to fuck around with stupid prescriptions (I have a serious illness: I don't think pop tarts taste good), and the cops can't hassle you about it.

That said, you can pretty reliably vote a democratic ticket in California and get the last bad option.

Also, CA has vote by mail.

> voting to (and california has propositions you can vote directly on many things) legalize marijuana has clear benefits.

You're conflating the legalization of marijuana, which obviously has clear benefits to many individuals, and the individual act of voting for the legalization of marijuana, which does not have much clear benefit.

> you can pretty reliably vote a democratic ticket in California and get the last bad option.

That's a perfect example of my claim about the irrationality of voting. People often identify with a party, and vote party lines. That's a far cry from actually being educated about each candidate or issue, which plenty of polls demonstrate is rare among voters.

> Also, CA has vote by mail.

That's nice, but the physical process of voting is only a tiny part of the individual cost. Most of the cost is educating yourself by researching issues and following the actions of candidates, which most people (even voters) do not do.

> Society as a majority, at some point, wanted these drugs illegal.

So? There's nothing magical about "the majority" wanting something. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

http://www.democracyweb.org/majority/principles.php

http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

>Society as a majority, at some point, wanted these drugs illegal.

Can it be said that a heterogenous network of entities "wants" something if some particular clusters of entities inside the network are able to influence its consensus? I think that the phrase "society wants" is absolutely meaningless in overwhelming majority of contexts.

>I don't think it is an oversimplification. Society as a majority, at some point, wanted these drugs illegal.

Not really. There was an orchestrated campaign, with state support after some point, to get to this.