This country was founded on the separation of church and state and what is legislating morality with regards to this but treading on that principle?
Be careful because you've just made the argument that morality is synonymous with religion. I don't think you want to go there, nor can we have that discussion here.
Second, not everyone who is religious opposes the legalization of drugs. There are health reasons why people would be opposed to legalization.
Third, with all due respect, the argument that you can't legislate morality is an inherently flawed one. Morality simply put is a set of ideas about what is right and what is wrong.
Laws codify to a society what is right and what is wrong.
The essence of law is to enforce what is right and what is wrong.
Do you think more people would go out and duel to the death if the law prohibiting duels were abolished? Of course, they would.
Do you think more people would steal if the laws prohibiting theft weren't in place? Of course, they would.
What you
CAN'T legislate is
ATTITUDES about laws. But you can legislate morality because many people will not violate societal laws if they are spelled out clearly (which is why we have the codification of laws) even as many will violate them anyway.
Did we not learn anything from Prohibition? We created a criminal empire through the desire to control others' pleasures. That and the desire of at least one senator to get into bootlegging as a hobby.
Really, it's a trade off. We may have "created" a criminal empire, but we have many more deaths (drunk driving, rape, domestic abuse, etc.) by
legalizing alcohol. The question isn't whether crimes will disappear upon legalization. The question is whether we're
willing to trade one form of criminality for another. We said
YES with respect to Prohibition. But every family who has lost a child or spouse or parent to a drunk driver may have a thing or two to say about that.
What they should be doing is considering more laws to control congress, the real criminals in this country. They should at least allow a marijuana lobby to battle the liquor one fighting this with every dollar they can muster.
Isn't there a group lobbying for the legalization of marijuana? NORMAL?