Will the people that call for the continued war on drugs ever care about the consequences to addicts? Probably not. What about the consequences to innocent people? I can think of two examples for people I know personally.
First, the danger for a friend:
A graduate student friend of mine got married to a wonderful man. Unfortunately, after they got married, she discovered that he was addicted to heroin. You can imagine the nightmare; she initially found out because he'd spent all of their savings on drugs. She ended up getting a divorce. We've lost touch, but I wonder: did her husband share needles? Did she end up infected with HIV or hepatitis in addition to having her heart broken and her savings spent? I'm not sure what the theory of making people provide identification, a prescription, and their signature in order to legally obtain sterile needles is, but in addition to the obvious consequences (drug addicts will reuse needles and might become infected with a disease) is the slightly less obvious one (innocent spouses can also become infected.)
My friend's father passed away just over a year ago of pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive lung disease. That December was a very rough month. She said her father was held together with duct tape and a lot of medications at the end. He needed lots of Sudafed, Prednisone, and I don't even know what else. The problematic drug in the list was the Sudafed. Her father could barely leave the house for the last year of his life. He could go to doctor's appointments, but mostly he stayed home (on the second floor of the house). Even going downstairs to eat in the dining room with her mother would wear him out, so most of the time her mother took meals to him in their bedroom. He was taking the maximum allowed dose of Sudafed. I don't remember the details of how much Sudafed one is "expected" to require, but I know my friend's mother attempted to get the next box a little before the powers that be expected her to, and she was placed on a drug watch list. She ended up asking relatives to pick up some Sudafed for her husband when they would come for a visit.
I don't personally know anyone that has been affected by the drug raids on the medical marijuana clinics, but I'm sure they are out there.
What benefit is there to these policies? How many more innocent people need to be affected before something is changed?