The death penalty isn't a deterrent.
QFT.
People don't give a shit about what happens after they get caught. They don't plan to get caught. Deterrents would be negative side effects, "bad trips", the habit-forming nature of many drugs, and the not altogether uncommon behavior change after repeated use. Addiction is a cruel mistress.
But don't get me wrong. I'm all for responsible drug use. Prohibition encourages people the way rebel movies do. Legalization is the way forward, of course. But people have to be educated in primary school about their body chemistry, homeostasis, and the processes of life. That is altogether absent (at least in the states) and as a result most people are completely unprepared to introduce not only effective common and simple drugs (tylenol, antihistamines, expectorants) but serious and impairing drugs (painkillers, sleep aides, xanax) let alone the illegal varieties.
I think good resources are the key, but local teachers have to take a role in this more so than a DARE officer or some other fuckwad giving anti-drug lectures in ten states coinciding with his book release. That's a haphazard and uninspired way to wage a war on drugs. A dollar spent on education is 100x more effective than a dollar spent on bullets, but there's no education lobby (besides the teachers unions I suppose) so we're stuck with horrible common knowledge.
My favorite resource has always been
Erowid which has basic information (dosing, legality, method of action) but also the infinitely more useful experience vaults. I'll tell you, there are some drugs I've thought about intellectually, like "why would someone try that?" and then I read someone's first hand report and I understand. Plenty of drugs I thought I was interested in, I'm not, just based on reading ten or twenty reports. But the reverse is also true. Two that have held my interest recently are Kava and Kratom, both unscheduled/unregulated in the US.
I'm almost obligated to advocate keeping an open mind about drugs. After LSD, there really isn't a choice. Apparently there are some clinical studies going on in Europe with LSD in terminal patients. Trying to give them the religious experience in old age or something
Knowledge is power.