US is only lenient when compared to even more severe steamrollers of human rights. Executing individuals for drug possession is absolutely unconsciousable and unacceptable. Incarceration being less diabolical does not mean it is not still highly diabolical. Countless lives were and continue to be destroyed.
The state killing people is always unjustified since you can't prove 99%+ really did the crime. In fact, we can show the states and feds have put to death many of their own innocent citizens.
Compared to selling hard drugs on the street? Technically what you're describing is against the law, but given that people are selling hard drugs on the street, I doubt you could get the cops to care.