Alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs are crippling our society.  Beyond the hard economic costs, addiction destroys people's lives.  Here are some statistics on the size of the problem in the US (more):

• In 2000, Americans spent about $64 billion on illicit drugs
  
• An estimated 61,000 (16%) of convicted jail inmates committed their offense to get money for drugs
  
• The societal cost of drug abuse, including lower productivity, crime prevention and health care impacts was estimated to be $143 Billion in 1998

In 2002, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) received around $900m in federal funding to support addiction research, prevention programs and drug rehabilitation systems, a drop in the bucket compared to the size of the problem.  Something must change.

People will not stop using harmful drugs until there are alternatives.  With breakthroughs in biochips and brain imaging on the horizon, it might just be time to invest heavily in better, safer, non-addictive alternatives to today's recreational drugs. 

This obviously goes against current public policy, but the benefits of developing alternatives would be tremendous.  Unfortunately it is illegal to start a company to research and develop potential alternatives.  This is wrong and must change. 

Alcohol, the most widely used/abused substance, is a 4000 year old technology.  Isn't it about time that we apply cutting edge research and knowledge to update the set of recreational tools humanity uses?