[stef25]

Portugal doesn't treat users as criminals anymore but they still consume product that's illegally imported or produced by criminal organisations and the black economy is very much alive.

What legalisation can achieve is to reduce demand. I believe Holland has quite a low incidence of cannabis consumption.

> I think that if the government really wanted to they could stomp all these cartels out of existence

As long as there's demand (and the US has oh so much of it), someone will provide it. Trillions have been wasted on the drug war and nothing has been stomped out of existence. This has nothing to do with lack of incentive.