What happens when drug addicts become so addled that they can no longer hold down a job? Some of them turn to various forms of crime to feed their addiction; others become homeless bums and beg to feed their addictions. If these people had families that loved them, they cause untold pain to those families who must watch them descend into living hell. Some drug addicts turn violent and physically harm or even kill others. Drug abuse is hardly a victimless crime. It may not be as overt as a bank robbery, but the damage it causes is far more pervasive and causes more long-term collateral damage.
I have an uncle who has been in prison since the 1970s for a horrific murder he committed while under the influence of illicit drugs. You cannot convince me that drug abuse is a victimless crime, or that it should be legalized.
Bank robberies are detected 100% of the time, potential victims take all manner of preventive measures beforehand, and actual victims cooperate in investigations afterward. The vast majority of illegal drug transactions go undetected, and those involved actively seek out those transactions and strive to avoid investigation. Laws against consensual acts are, by the nature of the act, doomed to futilty.
Before we go off on your latest tangent, let's note that it is a tangent from the above question: whether bank robbery refutes the anti-War-on-Drugs argument that the WoD is failing. As I showed, it is apples-and-oranges so not a refutation.
What happens when drug addicts become so addled that they can no longer hold down a job? Some of them turn to various forms of crime to feed their addiction; others become homeless bums and beg to feed their addictions. If these people had families that loved them, they cause untold pain to those families who must watch them descend into living hell. Some drug addicts turn violent and physically harm or even kill others.
And some don't - in fact, the majority of users don't become addicted at all. It is immoral to punish non-harming addicts and nonaddicted users for what some addicts do (in general, and particularly the noncriminal harms of being homeless and begging).
Drug abuse is hardly a victimless crime. It may not be as overt as a bank robbery, but the damage it causes is far more pervasive and causes more long-term collateral damage.
Government - especially the federal government of strictly enumerated Constitutional limits - has no general mandate to prevent "damage" ... much less to do so by violating the liberties of non-damagers.
And the relevant damage comparison isn't all addcition versus bank robbery anyway - it's to the direct and collateral damage done by the futile, failing War on Drugs versus any increase in drug addiction and its damages. It has yet to be shown that large numbers of adults are champing at the bit to use drugs; if one is not deterred by their inherent risks one is unlikely to be deterred by their illegality and is already using.
I have an uncle who has been in prison since the 1970s for a horrific murder he committed while under the influence of illicit drugs.
Blaming the drugs is like blaming the gun. Broadly based investigations show that most of those vicious/crazy on drugs were already vicious/crazy off drugs. And note that anti-drug laws did not prevent your uncle from getting those drugs.