Criminals don’t ‘go straight’ when a criminal enterprise is eliminated.
They expand/transform to another crime. Such as other drugs, extortion of the legal growers, human trafficking, kidnapping, etc.
Not to mention the problem of providing drugs to humans, and the effect on the person and society. Addicts commit crime to purchase their drugs, or abandon/ignore their children, and so on...
They expand/transform to another crime. Such as other drugs,
For which they can't create additional demand by sheer force of will.
extortion of the legal growers, human trafficking, kidnapping, etc.
None of which offer the return on effort of drugs - since unlike a buyer who cooperates in the crime before, during, and after, real crimes have victims (and their loved ones) who offer opposition before, during, and after.
Not to mention the problem of providing drugs to humans, and the effect on the person and society. Addicts commit crime to purchase their drugs, or abandon/ignore their children, and so on...
None of those problems have been improved by drug criminalization - and theft has been made worse by the increase in drug prices.