by the Media Awareness Project

About the author: The Media Awareness Project strives to influence public opinion through media coverage on public policy issues related to drugs and drug policy.

If you say that drug prohibition is a terrible mistake and drugs should be legalized, you will hear the inevitable, and understandable, objection: “But what about the children"” Young people are vulnerable. Our laws must protect them.

We couldn’t agree more. That’s one major reason we think drugs should be legalized.

Legalization sounds like a strange way to protect kids from drugs, because people commonly make the mistake of thinking that a criminal ban on drugs is the highest form of drug control possible. Legalizing drugs, they believe, means surrendering control, and giving our youth easier access to substances that may harm...