Far from half baked (theres a pun here if I look hard enough), Portugal stepped up and did the experiment already. And it worked.
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The OP's point is that decriminalization leaves the market, the money and the tax revenue with the criminals. As a taxpayer, I want a fair proportion of the money to go to the government, and only full legalization and regulation does that.
But first we have to mollify the masses that the decades of War-On-Drugs FUD is untrue. Show them that drug users are fellow humans, and easier access to the tools they use to generate happiness isn't going to cause rioting on the streets.
Exactly. One person's idea of a half-baked measure is another's idea of incremental progress. When you can demonstrate that some of what reactionaries believe is flatly wrong it gets a lot easier to chip away at the rest of the errors they've managed to enshrine in law.
And yet another's idea of a slippery slope, sliding towards chaos and the downfall of society. I personally think this is a good idea, but it's pretty clear to me that that's not a universally-held opinion.
It's pretty close to universally held among decent, intelligent people who aren't personally invested in the drug war. As time goes by, and more governments successfully turn their backs on the drug warriors, support for the drug war will become a badge of corruption, idiocy, or worse.
Fully agreed. I support fairly high taxes on it, but full legalisation. And it is true that people still need convinced, but different places are starting experiments now. I've heard the US puts anti-drug language in contracts and stuff - if true, the faster the US loosens up, the more quickly change can be possible.