Should Loaded and Concealed Guns be Allowed in National Parks?

Nope.

"The problem I see is that addicts will still engage in illegal behavior to obtain their drugs. "

The data just doesn't support that claim. With possession being legal proving sale becomes next to impossible. And with all the obvious benefits Portugal is experiencing I'd say the priority on the enforcement of anti sales law is diminished except in the highest of traffickers, and I assure you this will reflect in the street price.

There is just no objective view of the cessation of prohibition which can be called negative, just like the gun law issue. The only people that say otherwise are the ignorant and the vested.. It truly is that simple given current circumstances..

Addicts often commit crime because they are barred access to the job market. In America you virtually can't get a non wage slavery job without peeing in a cup. In a community where drug possession and therefor use is legal, drug testing should go down, and as it does the entry of functional addicts into the market will occur. Opening the door to a whole class of workers who spend their money on heroin instead of WoW and still show up to work on time.

The drug market is a truly free market, and as such it reacts with lightning speed.

"I am against them because of what they do to people's lives"

Drugs themselves actually do very little harm, especially compared to things like HFCS, fat, or cars .

It's drug policy that destroys lives. The drug problem is a healthcare issue, not a law enforcement one. It's like trying to arrest and jail cancer .

The drug war makes it impossible to get treatment, it forces addicts to live off grid, creating a self fulfilling prophecy. Of course addicts steal, once they are an addict we won't let them work!

It creates a criminal enterprise that results in the utter destruction of communities. It's also hypocritical. We are a drug saturated society . The pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable one in America. This duplicity causes a fundamental distrust and hatred of the government who's cost alone cannot be calculated. And again, self fulling prophecy, when they in turn show a total lack of respect for authority we say the drugs did it, when in fact WE did it.

Heroin used to be sold over the counter, some estimates place functional addiction in America almost to the one third mark at it's peak. Society's chief problem at the time? The stock market. Not street crime, not an army of addicted zombies living off government and outs, but upper class suits making margin calls and leading us into a depression on completely false claims.

All the other drugs are a function of the drug war as well to one degree or another, as dealers sought to increase their profit per pound/gram/ton and set about refining their drugs. Meth as a street drug is a synthetic substitute for coca plain and simple. It exists almost solely because it can be produced in street labs.

"they will be responsible for treating you as a result of your inability to control your own life. "

Nothing could be further from the truth. Look how well the government handles the poverty and homelessness epidemics. Not to mention mental health care which is related to both. The number of homeless people who are mentally ill is staggering.

America has a long history of ignoring those in need, why should addicts be any different?

This image of the nanny state is largely a myth perpetrated by the right in order to preserve their own ill gotten gains. By every objective relative measure the funding spent by the United States on aid to it's own citizens is abysmally small. If one were to judge our compassion based on those figures one would conclude we are a society with the moral fortitude of Ted Bundy.

It is a classic example of swallow an elephant choke on a gnat. The drug war directly costs nearly 2000$ per second. A typical food stamp card costs 134$ a month. The myth of the nanny state is smoke and mirrors. The typical upper class American could not survive without the state regulating their business competition out of existence, and subsidizing their failures. (AIG anyone?)

And on a purely practical note no policy change is painless. The art of state craft is the trade of 2 units of pain for 1 unit of pain.

Given the untold billions in direct and indirect savings coupled with the increased productivity unquestionably associated with the termination of the drug war, the problems you describe even if they themselves were taken completely without argument would be a paltry annoyance compared to the utter human catastrophe drug policy is in America today.

Indeed I believe the gains would be so excessive that they would in turn pay for any sort of short comings.

But really do NOT trust me, go look into it. There are mountains of studies on each subject.

I hope this was food for thought :)