>>It does not need to be decriminalized, the WOD needs to be redefined and fought. Legalizing drugs is not only a pipe dream ( no pun intended ) but a very bad idea.
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>Except for the current situation which is far worse.
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>You have the organized crime (along with the CIA, some authors would add) who are an enterprise, bent on maximizing profits just like everyone else. That means lowering costs (i.e. cut it with anything that doesn't kill your customers too early), expanding your customer base (push it to more and more people, invent new products to attract new customers and get the old ones to upgrade to more expensive stuff), staying competitive (bribe where needed, keep turf wars to a minimum), staying ahead of the curve (stockpile _before_ there's a big bust so you can charge double while the shortage lasts, buy info, maintain sources), and making sure you get money for what you sell (kneecap as needed, keep fences nearby so what the customers steal to be able to pay is turned into money asap). The damage to the overall society is immense: you lose a good part of the workforce, the gullible who fall for the sweet marketing talk of the pushers and free samples; you lose the profits on what they'd be buying if they weren't buyin'; you lose the taxes they'd be paying if they weren't buyin'; you lose on the cost of their duying of overdose or just plain junk that the stuff was cut with; you lose on the money their near and dear spend on them (while that lasts) and their medical or legal expenses and not on themselves or consumer goods; you waste wads of money on legal expenses in prosecution of these petty crimes; you feed these gullible kids into penitentiary meat grinder out of which they usually come out as hardened criminals - graduated that college for simple possession.
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>UK had it legal at some point, IIRC, until Nixon pressed them to join the War which will be On Drugs. Sorry I lost the link, it was a few years ago (I'd rather have someone who remembers how that worked tell about it), but it was generally a sort of ambulatory clinic. Addicts would sign up for their doses, would go to the nearest (pharmacy, doctor, station of sorts - don't remember) where they'd get their dose of clean stuff, and a sterile syringe, at state prices. Many actually started lowering their doses, and the crime rate fell dramatically. The total cost was about a fraction of what drug-related crime was causing, and most of the addicts were registered and under control, becoming more or less productive, now that they weren't pushed into increasing the dosage from the supply side, nor pushed into crime from the legal side. Um, and the market for narcotics nearly evaporated.
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>Funny, though, that there's almost no mention of it nowadays. Because it was before Internet?
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>N.b. I don't know what I'm talking about. I never even tried any of the stuff.

San Francisco has had a "clean needle exchange program" for years, mainly to combat HIV and Hepatitis B. They have gotten pretty good results with epidemic containment, but I don't think those programs have actually pulled addicts out of the gutter for any longer than it takes for them to get a new clean needle...