Watch: Cerebral debate on the merits of drug legalization

[Scuba]

1. I watched this yesterday and thought neither side did very well ...

Professor Butler's argument for legalization was the best, but will not sway many people I'm afraid. Mr. Gillespie advocated from a libertarian point of view and ended up caught in his own trap, advocating for more government.

Mr. Hutchinson simply made my skin crawl, suggesting that some small improvement in sentence disparities for crimes like cocaine use vs crack cocaine use is a ready formula for solving all our problems with the unevenly applied laws. Mr. Darymple offered nothing memorable.

I would suggest a better case for legalization is the enormous financial and societal costs as a result not of drug use and abuse, but as a result of the illegality of such use. The cure is much worse than the disease.

But that's just me.