DRUGS ARE THE MOST DANGEROUS THING ON EARTH AND THEY'LL KILL YOU

Head over to the DEA website and you'll see why drugs are illegal in their mission statement:

"The mission of the [DEA] is to enforce the controlled substances laws and regulations of the United States and bring to the criminal and civil justice system of the United States, or any other competent jurisdiction, those organizations and principal members of organizations, involved in the growing, manufacture, or distribution of controlled substances appearing in or destined for illicit traffic in the United States; and to recommend and support non-enforcement programs aimed at reducing the availability of illicit controlled substances on the domestic and international markets."

Or, maybe they don't touch on why drugs are illegal . . . Anyway, the big thing is they're dangerous. Kids get hooked on them, turn stupid, start murdering and raping, leech off society, and then overdose and die. As you can see in the chart below, the War on Drugs has had a significant impact on the number of overdose deaths in the U.S.

Rate per 100,000 of unintentional drug overdose deaths in the U.S., via CDC.

That's right, there are about six times more overdose deaths since the War started. What's interesting is that this data mirrors that of the prison population's growth since the War began (for more info on the U.S. prison system, which holds a quarter of all Earth's prisoners, check out some of these stats).

But let's get to the dangers of drugs, kids. Illicit drug use is dangerous. It's deadly. Using illegal drugs like cannabis, LSD, psilocybin, PCP, ecstacy, meth, crack, and heroin is the quickest way to end up dead. They have "no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse." These drugs are dangerous enough to warrant a $1 trillion (and counting) War. Dangerous enough to require mandatory minimum sentencing for users (so they can get the help and support they need to overcome their addiction in a safe, drug-free environment).

Let's take a look at some of the data showing how dangerous illegal drugs are:

Visit DrugWarFacts.org for more great info like this.

Hmmm, it's tucked in there right under diabetes. And here's a newsflash: that number isn't just the flat-out illegal stuff like DMT and crack. It includes prescription drug overdoses, too. Those pills the doctor gives us have started an epidemic. One hundred people die in the U.S. from prescription drug overdoses every day. Read more on the CDC website.

From those drug deaths, 9,429 were caused by "unspecified" drugs and since the rest were prescription medications, taken legally or illegally, we're assuming the illegal drug deaths are in there. For this article, and just for fun, we'll assume all 9,429 of those were illegal drug deaths.

Breaking all this data down further, the Harvard School of Public Health looked at the lifestyle factors responsible for the deaths described above. For some reason they didn't feel it was necessary to investigate illegal drug use (they probably couldn't find enough specific data). Here's their list, with illegal drug deaths thrown in there:

1. Smoking: 467,000
2. High blood pressure: 395,000
3. Overweight-obesity: 216,000
4. Inadequate physical activity and inactivity: 191,000
5. High blood sugar: 190,000
6. High LDL cholesterol: 113,000
7. High dietary salt: 102,000
8. Low dietary omega-3 fatty acids (seafood): 84,000
9. High dietary trans fatty acids: 82,000
10. Alcohol use: 64,000
11. Low intake of fruits and vegetables: 58,000
12. Low dietary poly-unsaturated fatty acids: 15,000
13. Illegal drugs: 9,429

Not eating enough fruits and vegetables is more dangerous than doing illegal drugs! 

OMG! GET THAT WATERMELON AWAY FROM ME!

Harvard's breakdown is very similar to a popular CDC article titled "Actual causes of death in the United States, 2000" (that they have for some reason neglected to provide ever again), which listed the top three causes of death as smoking, poor diet and inactivity, and alcohol consumption, respectively. And just for some more reference, here's another article showing the top nine causes of death in the U.S. (hint: illegal drugs aren't on there).

In conclusion, no one should ever do illegal drugs, ever, because the government decided they're illegal and dangerous and they'll corrupt your mind. For more fun reading, check out the DEA's informative PDF Drugs of Abuse.

For our next installment, we'll be looking at another danger of illegal drugs: addiction, and how the government lists it as a mental health issue on all their websites, but decides to use the law enforcement system to treat it with prison sentences. Addiction is a disease, after all, and everyone knows the saying: "A 15-year sentence keeps the doctor away."