I have to interject a correspondent answer here about the Europe/US drug thing. Europeans just don't treat drug abuse as a big legal problem like we do here in Butthurt America. Largely, drug abuse in Europe is treated sanely as a MEDICAL ISSUE. Instead of spending so much cultural energy criminalizing drugs, they seek more social solutions like medical treatment. Of course, they are a more advanced civilization for things like that, since they have a base of socialized medicine from which to even address drugs as medical problems, not criminal ones.
As a barbaric and regressive society, the US lacks socialized medicine (well, the official form; the UNOFFICIAL form we use is to wait, then get very sick, then end up in the hospital in emergency care, then bankrupt out of the bill ... but I digress). Lacking such a sane basis for citizenship and culture, it seems to logically follow that ANY drug abuse or even use in the USA is going to run into some very harsh measures. That creates a very hostile environment on both sides of the drug issue. That then seems to lead to the extremism we also see on both sides.
It's up to the US to stop treating drug abuse and use as criminal problems, and to start treating them as minor problems mostly related to medical care. Then all those cops can spend their time looking for REAL criminals ... you know, the people who cheat people, hurt people, and kill people. Decriminalizing drugs would also vastly decrease their cost and the concomitant criminal fraternity that goes along with it. In fact, we'd save so much on law enforcement that we can then downsize our police forces.
(Now we must cue the usual butthurt Ugly American who will scream incessantly against drugs and socialized medicine.)