> How do you define uselessness? What's the metric?
Despite the billions we have poured into fighting illegal drugs across all western countries they are sold nore or less openly a few hundred meters from here.
> Legalization means less competition, lower prices. It will simplify the process of selling, but nobody's in this "business" just for fun. They want to make money.
Exactly.
Organized crime has massive overheads (bribes, protection, losses due to raids, probably more).
The moment someone starts selling at pharmacies their illegal marijuana market collapses even if government adds a fair tax on it like many governments do with tobacco and ethanol.
> No. When a substance is allowed for everyone, but someone (eg school students), then it's even a bigger problem. Marijuana usage in public US schools is a massive problem. Teens find ways to buy and sell the drug.
All this holds true for ethanol as well and yet all western countries realized almost a century ago that the attempted cure was worse than the disease.
We still deal with people abusing it to the point were it hurts their families, themselves and society but at least deaths due to methanol poisonings are down and there's one less lucrative market for criminals to tap into.
I'm not saying this is easy.
But after being a supporter of though-on-drugs policies for 20 years (since I was 15 and formed my first such opinions) I have changed my views.
Not because I wanted more people to get stoned or because I want it myself but because I cannot see any good end in sight.