Time to time, I see posts here about the drug war and how its government engineered to benefit the people in charge. I hear all the time from the hoi polloi that the government is foolish, that all drugs should be legalized like alcohol and cigarettes so violent cartels and other organizations will be robbed of an economic incentive/means to remain in power while providing tax money for public projects.
It is true that the current interdiction-focused strategy has failed since the drug war started and will continue to fail as far as I can tell; the stats don't lie. I do believe America's drug problem is more a problem of public health than crime control. And let's not forget that the government is stupid in terms of drug classification (passing laws to put psychedelics in schedule I without scientific basis, causing a major stunt in psychiatry's growth as a field of medicine, really makes me shake my head).
But only the uninformed will just blatantly say "make all drugs legal." I'm not calling you stupid if you do that but it's clear you're not seeing the big picture.
If making drugs legal and free for consumption and trade was entirely possible, it would take the political and administrative geniuses of our time.
For legalization to work as a means of ending the drug war and doing away with violent criminals economically, all drugs regardless of their harm potential have to be offered on the free market at a better price than what criminals can offer. Emphasis on all drugs must be offered because if a drug is in demand and arbitrage is made possible via laws making the drug's production, distribution, and consumption illegal, then people will just buy it from the same criminals all the other drugs were made legal to wipe out.
Alcohol and cigarettes, as bad as they are, are legal because they don't kill you immediately unless you fuck up big time. Because of this, they are sold at liquor stores and delis with a simple age restriction. How would in demand drugs like heroin work? A drinker gets overconfident at the bar so he ends up puking. A heroin user (IV in this case) gets overconfident in his apartment and dies on the couch.
So there's the matter of harm potential. A lot of people are retarded and are bound to hurt themselves but if we legalize everything except heroin, you still have heroin cartels and scumbags selling fentanyl. Which leads us to the next reasonable measure: a limit to how much one can buy per interval of time. Ignoring that this would clearly be counterproductive and allow a black market for heroin to survive, how would this interval of time be determined? How do you make sure that the guy doesn't just buy more at a different store? Which government body would regulate the stores themselves? How do you make sure the guy doesn't get someone else to buy it for him? What's the punishment for violating the weekly limit? Who's going to enforce this weekly limit and prevent circumvention, the cops who are already budget strapped and stretched thin? Not to mention the budget strapped and stretched thin legal system that already struggles with its current load of cases leaving people to serve time in jail before they're proven guilty. Then there's the possibility that the age minimum for drugs would still leave enough of a market for criminal enterprises to survive, by selling to students. Additionally, there's the problem of people with substance abuse and mental health histories purchasing addictive drugs at stores which would raise the issue of "fit-to-consume" verification unless the government wants depressed people easily getting their hands on the exact shit depressed people should be kept away from. I'm rambling now because there's so much to cover.
There's plenty more to bring to attention as well as plenty of scholarly articles that go into even greater depths of everything that would have to be figured out and well-executed for legalization to work as a drug war solution but I'm tired of typing.
Tl;dr: legalization as a solution to the drug war is harder than you could possibly imagine. Decriminalization of drugs is more realistic.
If you think I'm wrong, outline a detailed plan for making legalization possible and functional.
My detailed plan. Legalise everything adapt and expand pre-existing administrative, quality control, and distribution mechanisms as alchohol. No limits on consumption. Is there a fit to consume requirement on alchohol? No cause that's the stupidest most arbitrary thing ever. Let poeple do what they will do but provide resources the try to limit harm.
Why do you think this is impossible? States have already done it with marijuana just expand the framework.