Time to face facts and legalize!

Well, sorry to burst your bubble, the actual reality on the ground in areas and countries where legalization has been implemented shows the exact opposite of what you say. The number of addicts decrease, the number of over dose deaths decrease, crime decreases and the number of users (regardless if they're addicts or functional/recreational) either remains the same or decreases.

I think you're too focused on the legalize part of legalization. With legalization of course needs to be regulation. That means that there should be education about drugs and their dangers, there should be programs to identify, engage and help problematic drugs users as early as possible, and other facilities to prevent problems should be made available (clean needles or clean and safe place to consume the drugs.)

The funds for those "services" can be drawn from the taxes raised from the drugs or from the money that is saved by the greatly reduced damages and other problems related to drugs abuse. The closest example today of a general decriminalization of all drugs, soft and hard, is Portugal. They decriminalized drugs in 2001 and 22 years later the only conclusion can be that it worked. It is true the number of users has slightly grown, this growth could also be contributed to the global trend, the willingness to admit to using drugs when asked about it and the growth of the population as a whole. The number of problematic users, addicts and deaths from drugs use have dramatically declined. Part of this was due to the regulation of the quality of the drugs, as adding harmful substances to the drugs nearly never happens anymore. Overdose incidents went down from 1004 in 2000 to 4 in 2022 for example. Drugs related crime has almost dissipated, except for those related to international trafficking.

The Portugal way (no distinction between soft and hard drugs) is a rare way to go for governments looking to legalize/decriminalize. Most choose to make the distinction and only legalize soft-drugs, often concentrating on cannabis. Many states in the US have legalized cannabis over the past years and they too experience the benefits of doing so. Crime and health problems related to cannabis go down dramatically and the reduced costs combined with the new income to the state through tax-revenue and profits from production and sale of the class 2 drugs ensures there is enough money to fund the education, regulation and treatment of the general public.

When taking into account the data that 30 countries/states who have legalized across the globe we know that the number of users does not or only slightly increase. Other problems drugs cause all have been reduced significantly trending in the opposite direction of the numbers in countries that did not decriminalize or legalize. Those are irrefutable, proven factual measurable and verifiable facts.

Your assumption that the reason for forbidding the possession, use, production and sale of drugs is that drugs are bad for people's health is doubtful at best. The most obvious sign there might be other considerations that lead to de-legalization or criminalization is of course Alcohol.

It is a generally accepted fact that Alcohol is one of the, if not the, most harmful drug on the planet we know of. It is physically addictive, causes severe damage to organs and the brain and those under its influence tend to become more aggressive and violent quicker than almost any other drugusers. Despite this there are few places on Earth where alcohol is an illegal drug. The biggest country to have ever completely banned alcohol has rescinded that abashment after a couple of years when they realized that complete eradication from their society of alcohol was impossible and that the criminalization of alcohol had more negative consequences than it had benefits. (USA prohibition 1920-1933).

Religion, politics and economics are at the root of the banning of drugs. Most notably Islam bans drugs as it does alcohol, because of some passages in the Qur'an. In China the ban on drugs was motivated mostly by politics, with politician seeking support and often finding it among drug producers or merchants. The mightiest of forces behind banning drugs has been and will probably remain to be economical. I won't go into the intricacies of politics here but someone making their money from the production, distribution and trade in Alcohol will not want cannabis to be legal. They will not want their customers to discover that cannabis feels better when consumed, causes near 0 hangover, is cheaper than alcohol and has less related problems than alcohol. They fear it would bankrupt them.

Painkiller medicine producers will not be happy when they see their customers using drugs instead of their synthetic products,

Many in the US are convinced the war on drugs was started to get more control over those in their population that... Eeehm... are less eager to conform to government demands. (African Americans)

Your example of prostitution does not hold up to reality either. A perfect example is Australia. Since they have legalized prostitution the number of human trafficking victims went down almost 90%, STD's have been reduced by more than 50%. The regulation of prostitution have resulted in protection of both sex-workers and customers and the violence towards sex-workers has almost been reduced to 0.

The same trends are seen in other countries where prostitution has been regulated.

Now it is true that more and more cases of kids being manipulated into sending explicit pictures and video's through the internet make the news. This has nothing to do with legalizing or decriminalizing something that was previously illegal. It's still illegal to solicit compromising images or video from minors. The same goes for adults if the purpose is to use the material to force and manipulate someone using that material. The reason or one of the reasons it seems like it is happening more and more is greatly caused by cases making headlines and the news more often. Best case scenario is that this is a good sign, as more and more cases of this nature are discovered their perpetrators arrested and prosecuted. I don't think this is an issue relevant to this topic though.

So I'm sorry but the facts on the ground, in practice right now refute most if not al the argumentation you've presented. There is a lot of resistance to accepting reality, mostly from religious sides. That opposition will do anything in it's power to prevent decriminalization or legalization of drugs, including spreading false information, to protect their income and their power.

How do i know that i am not the one getting manipulated and fed false information? Over the past 30+ years i have been directly involved in both sides of this debate. I've worked with law-enforcement to prevent, investigate and capture drug users, traffickers and producers. I've also been a consumer, I've been a low level runner and I've been involved in production of drugs. I have actual practical experience and i know/knew individuals and groups active in the scene. Though i had some close calls, i can honestly say i never got addicted and i never been arrested or convicted in relation to drug offenses. I have also worked at the department of Justice for 3 years, and finally I've been involved with a political party assisting development of part of a party-program detailing the stance of that party in the run up to elections.

With only very rare exceptions I've quit consuming drugs years ago but i still feel it is the right and responsibility of each individual to decide what they can and cannot afford to put inside their bodies.

But above all of this there is one thing that makes decriminalization or legalization inevitable. There will always be a demand for ways that make one feel different, better, for a little while.

That will never change. Ergo: there will always be users, and as long as there are users there will be those that provide something to use.

Not in all countries will have the same effect. In my country it doesn't matter if drugs are illegal or not, young people consume them.

In part, because the laws are not applied in their entirety.

In the same way, there are children who consume alcohol in broad daylight, regardless of whether adults see them. In fact, they are the majority of the population that consumes it. The same happens with the common cigarette and the electronic cigarette.

The consequences is that these addictions have taken the life of one of these. Not only because they have died, but because those who still do not are submerged in it.

We usually say that Venezuela is a country without law, because many people do what they want regardless of what is established in the penal code, or the civil code.

Based on this, what is seen on a day-to-day basis, in young people, and in statistics from my country. I can say that the legalization of these substances would be part of the problem. The rate would skyrocket, just like it happens with cigarettes and alcohol.

Sorry, i still have to disagree. In fact you actually make part of my point when you say "In my country it doesn't matter if drugs are illegal or not, young people consume them." which is totally spot on, and not just in your country. Making something illegal that people are going to consume anyway and forcing the production, distribution and sale of that something to go underground and off the radar of any oversight makes it almost impossible to do anything to protect those consumers. There is no motivation to produce the stuff cleanly and safely, or make sure the product is not cut up with dangerous stuff to increase profit. There is no oversight on the distribution and logistics, and those in the logistics have no motivation to not use violence to ensure the transports get where they need to go. The "retailers" lack that same motivation. They don't care their customers are adults or 10 year olds, they don't care that what they're selling is addictive and destroying the bodies of those who use it, and have no motivation to carve out more market share in a civilized manner instead of killing anyone who dares sell anything in their turf.

Regarding the alcohol and tobacco being such problems. It's one of two examples i know that underline some conditions that need to be met when legalizing. You cannot just torch the laws that ban the substances and expect everything to work out. If you do that you're gonna have a bad time. One condition must be met in order to make legalization work. Aggressive and violent Repression needs to be replaced by "REGULATION" and enforcement. Portland Oregon is finding that out now as well with some streets having become ground 0 for the start of the Fentanyl zombie apocalypse. They too legalized without regulating, did not invest in setting up rehabs or any other type of care/help for those who get addicted and the slide to their overdose deaths. When you regulate you make sure that drugs are age restricted, that the production of the stuff is done by government licensed professionals, the quality of the stuff is quality controlled, the only available stuff is the stuff produced by licensed governed producers who'll loose their licenses if they cannot meet the requirements set by the government (some of which could be:

No sales to <18 year olds. No sales of anything from unlicensed producers. Requirements for providing information and tips to customers about the stuff they sell. Keep detailed and extensive administration including who is buying their products and how much and can identify potential problem users.

I know you're thinking "We ain't got no money for shit like that!" but that would not be true. The money your governments save through reduced costs of law-enforcement and prosecution/healthcare and extra income the government gets by the taxes levied on the products will more than cover for the costs of implementing and enforcing those drugs.

Now even with taxes levied by the government the prices of drugs will drop significantly, shrinking the profit margins to such an extent it will no longer be worth it for the criminals that currently controlling the drugs trade.

Criminals will find the drugs business to be far far less profitable than a number of other, still illegal, industries and get out of the drugs business.

Having said that, if the government doesn't regulate anything, does not enforce any of their rules and laws, it doesn't matter if one of those laws say drugs are legal or anything. Venezuela is one of those nations in which the government is unwilling or unable to regulate anything that isn't directly contributing to their own personal power and or wealth, public health care is unhealthy, and money is worth less than the paper it is printed on. (that's still the case right, haven't kept up with Venezuela the past 5 to 10 years. You've had Hugo Chavez and Maduro running the show, which turned out to be less than perfect for the job of running a country, fighting corruption, building an economy or managing a countries rich resources?)

So i can understand that legalization at this point is not one of the top priorities for anyone in your country, and you rather have the government focus on getting food to their population and stuff like that.