To my knowledge, very few people want marijuana to be completely unregulated. Most seem to be very okay with an aggressive tax and regulation structure, in exchange for legal purchase.

In other words: regulation does not itself justify criminalization.

Completely agree.

Aggressive taxes create a black market for goods. To protect the tax revenue the govt must be aggressive about prosecuting unlicensed operators who do not pay taxes. This is counter to the social politics of wanting to end the war on drugs.

As a compromise the govt heavily taxes legal businesses while allowing the black market to thrive with minimal punishment. C’est la vie.

This isn't a uniform truth about taxes, even aggressive ones: the evidence so far around marijuana legalization has been than consumers have been more than happy to pay high taxes, because the net cost of marijuana is still similar to or lower than the pre-legal cost.

We might eventually see a variant of tax stamp fraud for marijuana, the way some states do for cigarettes. But that's just the nature of these things, like you said, and I think the general trend is a "win," in terms of eliminating WoD policies.

In California the estimate is that 25% of consumers are buying from licensed retailers.

>As a compromise the govt heavily taxes legal businesses while allowing the black market to thrive with minimal punishment. C’est la vie.

And meanwhile billions were taken out of the black market, and the government increased tax receipts.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good (or in the case, 'better').

As compared to now, with a thriving black market, and aggressive prosecution of all parties?

Marijuana has been legal-and-regulated in Canada for years. I assure you that the sky hasn't fallen.

Also being realistic, anyone who’s ever ever ever smoked weed in their life can tell you honestly it does not impair your ability to drive even 10% close to being drunk. yes it’s an anecdote, but it’s genuinely the truth.

As I noted elsewhere, I'm not at all arguing in favor of marijuana being illegal (personally, I don't care about it, and agree that if we care about how substance usage affects others, marijuana is not the highest priority).

This is... not my experience with marijuana. I couldn't imagine driving while high. I don't even like walking while I'm high because my balance and reaction times get really messed up.

Yes, you're incapable... because THC is a sedative.

You're more likely to eat and fall asleep, than to have reduced inhibitions.

THC is a sedative, which you feel very well.

High doses can cause underlying conditions to surface, but it's not nearly as destructive as alcohol.

People who get paranoid on THC, are way more belligerent on alcohol.

Pretty sure that part of the phenomenon of people getting paranoid from being stoned has to do with the prosecution in the first place, the drug enhancing this perception or not.

That's the public excuse. The reality is that it's a powerful tool to oppress "others" -- https://www.aclu.org/post-to-social/war-drugs-racist

This is well documented, the above link is one of many.

It doesn't have to be an either-or. To be clear, I'm not personally advocating that marijuana be illegal, just answering the earlier comment that was arguing that use of marijuana affects nobody but the user, which can sometimes be true but is definitely not always true, and that is one of the main the bases for substance regulation.

The fact that how substances are regulated is irregular and inconsistent is a separate issue from whether or not it's ok for a society to regulate some substances.

Having neurosyphilis will affect "others".

The bar for "affects others" is extremely low in society.

Unless there's a very clear study, that a certain substance will cause an average human being to be aggressive, belligerent and violent - there's hardly a case for "affects others".

What do you mean by irregular or inconsistent? That some substances extremely harmful to society are loosely regulated while mostly innocuous ones put people in prison? That is troublesome. But if you mean variation by state, I think that is normal and should be moreso. I like my content labels, but I don't understand why the protection of interstate commerce means the FDA gets to tell my doctor which drugs they can prescribe for which conditions. Federal prohibition of alcohol required an amendment. The federal prohibition on any substance for any reason should require the same. There are plenty of items that are contraband in one state but not the next, that is no reason to ignore explicit limits on federal power.

I'm an advocate for the legalization of all drugs, but that it should be taxed and regulated as well.

All drug use has risks, including cannabis. But it's been so demonized in the past there's a natural reaction to sweep all concerns away because almost all of them are garbage. Reasonable regulation would be that it's not sold to minors, and that its active ingredients be accurately noted, and that the transaction is taxed appropriately.

It should be legal to sell fentanyl but not as an adulterant. Most of these opioid deaths are due to fentanyl and if they had access to regulated drugs those deaths would be greatly diminished.

My brother died of a heroin overdose many years ago, and I think he might be alive today if the drug he was abusing was at least calibrated for dosage. Maybe not. But it being illegal did not protect him or any of the others lost in the war on drugs.