[XorNot]

The thing is you can make it illegal to sell without being illegal to consume.

There's an important difference there - product safety enforcement vs. morality policing.

Particulary when most dangerous drugs are a result of chemical knockoffs to try and get around supply issues to making reasonably safe ones.

[visarga]

> The thing is you can make it illegal to sell without being illegal to consume.

If they make it illegal to sell, then the state must sell it. Otherwise it just doesn't work. Why should people acting legally need to buy from criminals?

[cklaus]

If you look at Portugal, who has had the most success in reducing drugs, they decriminalized drugs. Which meant they kept them illegal, but if caught it was equivalent of parking ticket fine, but also if person hit a threshold of too many fines, there was drug addiction therapy required. Decriminalization removes the excessive fines, time in jail, and removes the criminal record black mark.

Atlanta GA has decriminalized marijuana this year. If caught it's a $60 fee only. Previously it was $1000, up to 6 months in jail, and a criminal record.

This decriminalization should be applied to all drugs. This has been proven to work, everywhere it has been tried.