U.S. violent crime rises in 2006

[Ebowed]

The abortion rate did not immediately spike to its highest levels after the decision; it was in the mid-to-late 70s that the rates were highest, IIRC.

[??????????]

Drug sales/usage is not a victimless crime. Quit being so damned naive.

How is someone using a drug in their backyard, and not driving anywhere, affecting anyone else?

You must come from a very sheltered background if you haven't experienced what drug abuse can do to a family and how family members become victims of the drug abusers.

[Ebowed]

You must come from a very sheltered background if you haven't experienced what drug abuse can do to a family and how family members become victims of the drug abusers.

Obviously, then, the appropriate response would be medical treatment for drug addiction, not incarceration.

[NDN]

Drug sales/usage is not a victimless crime. Quit being so damned naive.

How is someone using a drug in their backyard, and not driving anywhere, affecting anyone else?

You must come from a very sheltered background if you haven't experienced what drug abuse can do to a family and how family members become victims of the drug abusers.

So does Alcohol abuse, but you don't see anyone calling for that to be illegal again. Drug addiction is horrible, but it's not something you can solve through coercion. The current policy is actually much worse than if drugs were legal, because it's putting many family members in jail, discouraging people from seeking help out of fear, artificially making drugs more expensive (thus encouraging theft and other crimes), and keeping a lot of less-wealthy people who have gone "clean" from getting a lot of jobs due to their past drug conviction.

I can tell you personally that Drug Prohibition ruined my mother's country too. At least half the people my uncle Gonzolo works for (when he does get work) are mafiasos. And he's a legitimate architect. Colombia, Afghanistan, and other countries are all significantly poorer because of the USA and the West's prohibition transforming what could be a legitimate agricultural or pharmaceutical industry into an easy money maker (and monopoly industry) for organized crime and terrorists.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

The appropiate response is to incarcerate people who support the war on drugs because they support stripping rights from people and breaking up families.

[Gabu]

The abortion rate did not immediately spike to its highest levels after the decision; it was in the mid-to-late 70s that the rates were highest, IIRC.

If abortion was the reason for the decline in crime rates, why would the crime rates have gone down among people in their 30s and 40s as well instead of just among juveniles?

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

The economy being good.

[Ebowed]

If abortion was the reason for the decline in crime rates, why would the crime rates have gone down among people in their 30s and 40s as well instead of just among juveniles?

Not sure.  Of course, I'm stealing this hypothesis from Freakonomics, which probably covers all of your questions in detail.