> We can see this in-action already. Places like California have effectively de-criminalized most/all drug use if you are part of the homeless population. Surprise again - there's more drug use within that community than ever before. It's difficult to walk through the down-town area without seeing overt drug use these-days.

Is this unique to CA? The street level suffering you see in CA cities is overwhelmingly related to fentanyl, an opioid. Infamously, the US is in the midst of the opioid crisis, with deaths continuing to rise unabated [1]. Places with harsher drug policing are also seeing rises in opioid deaths.

And while San Francisco is a top location for opioid deaths, the other top counties by death rates (Mendocino, Trinity, Alpine, Lake, Inyo, Humboldt, Nevada) are all very rural [2].

[1] https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd...

[2] https://skylab.cdph.ca.gov/ODdash/?tab=CA

> Several states have legalized marijuana, and surprise, marijuana usage is at an all-time high

That may be a result of measurement. People that used prior to legalization kept it secret. The stereotypical "stoners" are a fraction of cannabis users. After legalization people tend to be more open about their cannabis use.

If the measurement is based on surveys there will be an obvious increase after legalization as the legal consequences of admitting use have been removed.

If the measurement is based on sales there will also be an obvious increase after legalization as the majority of sales are recorded. Prior to legalization the majority of sales were illegal and the only sampling of the actual market size is from police seizures.

Yes, there will be a growth in the market when the legality is changed and stigma is reduced over time. That is people finding cannabis useful for themselves and no fear of being judged for that choice (same as alcohol is for many people).

There will always be a portion of the population that use drugs in excess to the detriment of their health or will compromise their morals to use. There is also a larger portion of the population that uses drugs regardless of legality and participates in society. You would never know the second cohort.

The problem with the first cohort is breaking other laws to satisfy their desire to use. Their drug use isn't the problem. Drugs didn't make them do anything. They should be punished for their other behavior not their consumption habits.

> This part is always lost on the "legalize everything" crowd.

These types of generalizations are usually built of straw and mud, but I'll go ahead and respond as someone in said crowd with a "no it's not." There's an implicit assumption here that increased usage is worse than the effects of prohibition, but that's at minimum highly debatable. I tend to think increased usage of a regulated and taxable substance by a well educated and supported populous is significantly preferable to prohibition and scare tactics, to say nothing of the wide swath of wide reaching knock on effects the latter has like powerful cartels/gangs, militarized police actions in response, people being groomed as convicts for their use, etc.

I'm not at all inclined to sweep the dangers of hard drugs under the rug, I'm all for looking at their effects and impacts head on, and indeed I think the legalization route is the best route to do so. I think individuals should be given sole stewardship of their own conscious experience, by endogenous or exogenous means, and society's best chance of maximizing those individual choices is through well thought education, regulation, and support (which is likely to all be cheaper and more tractable than prohibition is).

> Several states have legalized marijuana, and surprise, marijuana usage is at an all-time high (no pun intended).

There is some evidence (not conclusive yet) that legal access to marijuana reduces abuse of opioids.

I've never used marijuana, I don't like the smell of marijuana, and so I'm not keen on folks using it around me -- but in the grand scheme, pot smokers are not the ones breaking into cars and threatening folks on the train.

> It would be better to not throw people in prison for drug use - but instead have mandatory rehab or something... while keeping drug use out of reach for the average person.

Are we going to do that for alcohol _use_? What about caffeine _USE_? Caffeine is the most widely abused drug in the US and thousands of auto fatalities every year are due to fatigue, which caffeine perpetuates.

I don't care about drug use. I care about the assaults, the robberies, and the street people who block sidewalks and harass pedestrians and transit users. I'm not keen on excusing their behavior because of their substance _abuse_.

California didn't just decriminalize use, they decriminalized sales and open air drug markets. The two are technically different policy outcomes. The state was just exceptionally lazy in it's implementation, which was somewhat driven by the early response to COVID.

Alcohol is one of the most harmful drugs ever. It leads to all sorts of societal problems like early deaths, domestic abuse, traffic accidents, workplace accidents, even murder because it reduces inhibitions.

But somehow we're ok with selling unlimited quantities to people.

Most opiates are downright docile by comparison. A person passes out and can't harm anyone anymore.

Legalization would mean opiates are regulated. You can only get a certain strength. You can only buy so much per visit. Purity is regulated so you wouldn't accidentally get Fentanyl laced stuff and die.

There should be treatment options, of course, because it's the right thing to do, and it's also much cheaper than fixing the damage addicts can do, and also cheaper than the cost throwing them in prison.

Generally speaking drug addicts are actually self-medicating something anyway, it's like a slow suicide attempt due to some mental trauma or other mental illness like schizophrenia.

The OP is right. Decriminalization is the worst of both worlds.

For a long time we got use to not seeing as many drug addicts because a lot of them were thrown in prison where you don't see them anymore. Each one costing tax payers a full time wage, 35k per year per prisoner.

Decriminalization means you see more addicts out on the streets, but they're still getting overly strong, even laced stuff on the black market and are taken advantage of by predators.

Where marijuana legalization occurred there are purity limits on things like edibles. And you can only buy so much at once. It hasn't lead to really any problems but of course marijuana is one of the least harmful drugs out there. It's far less harmful than alcohol, so it might not be the best example.

I'd say alcohol is a better comparison to opiates and other hard drugs.

Legalization is the better path. We already should know better via our exercise in alcohol prohibition.

> drug use if you are part of the homeless population.

Maybe. homeless are the main issue, rather than drugs?

Like if I had to choose between regular cocaine habbit, and bein homeless, i'd rather be a cokehead.

Legalize everything!= Everyone should be using drugs. This is just one step in what should be a public health approach to drug use/abuse. Take away the lock them up because they are weak minded degenerates approach to drug use. I don’t see any dissonance in saying that drugs should be decriminalized and or legal in some cases but I also don’t think most people should use drugs regularly. If someone is abusing drugs it should certainly be cheaper to provide them with mental health care than locking them up in jail. Hard drugs like heroin and cocaine would be safer if they were not sold on the black market. I think that is a net positive vs the status quo- which is a game of “Is It Fentanyl?!?”™ currently. Should people be using those drugs? I don’t know. I personally wouldn’t want to even if I could buy them from a store. As for cannabis, I’m convinced that for 90+% of the populous* it’s safer than alcohol.

*I think anyone with family history of schizophrenia should avoid weed and probably all intoxicants.

It would be very hard for the effects of allowing people to choose what they consume to be worse than the effects of prohibition.

The homeless issue is multidimensional and, surprise, people were already getting drugs before they were decriminalized.

Legalization is morally correct and eliminates the gangs, violence, and high costs of prohibition.

> People who would have never tried it before now do so because the stigma is gone, and it's trivial to get. This part is always lost on the "legalize everything" crowd. While marijuana might be relatively benign, other drugs are not. Removing the stigma and making it easy to get harder drugs is going to be a net-negative thing for society as a hole.

That doesn't entirely follow. Marijuana is widely known to be benign, and so it's not much of a surprise that usage rose with legalization. Other drugs are known to not be benign, so you're not going to find a ton of people going "hey, why not try some heroin?"

Personally I think marijuana is a bit unique, more similar to alcohol in how it can fit into daily life for some people. Sure the use has probably gone up but that's just social norms changing, not necessarily for better or worse. (If it displaces alcohol or other drug use it's probably for the better). Every culture has different ideas about what drugs are acceptable.

Maybe legalizing cocaine would also see occasional recreational use go up - that's not necessarily a problem either.

> It would be better to not throw people in prison for drug use - but instead have mandatory rehab or something... while keeping drug use out of reach for the average person.

Totally agree, but I'd be in favor of a much harder line on the distribution and production side. The problem is one of supply, so if you can help rehab and curtail supply you help reduce usage.

It's a novelty right now.

In Amsterdam when you go to a music festival you will not see a lot of pod heads. I was one of the few and I'm a German!

Look at Portugals drug history. Legalization saved that country!

Is the stigma going away because it's legal or is it being legalized because the stigma is going away?

I have yet to meet a person. Whose personality didn’t completely changed after being on marijuana for a while.

Every single one of them said it didn’t affect them.

"We might have to operate in a cruel and unusual fashion, otherwise, some users might not actually be afraid enough of violence from the state to get help."

This is an unfortunate binary we've backed ourselves into. I can imagine tons of other methods the state could use to drive compliance other than outright incarceration and the threat of entirely destroying your life.