You aren’t grasping my point. A government can afford some loss of population. At some level of loss, NO GOVERNMENT can afford it.
At some point it becomes a national security issue. Any government which cannot or will not insure it’s own survival will be replaced by one which will.
OMG, people making poor choices and sitting around, giggling, munching, and doing nothing productive will lead to a mass casualty event that will drop the population below some bureaucrat’s comfort threshold! So we have to put up with police harassment, asset forfeiture, fines, and imprisonment while the true parasite class in government runs roughshod over all of us.
Your worried about pot while the CIA is profiting from heroin and cocaine. We invaded Afghanistan only to see it turned into the largest producer of heroin while we occupied it. The Mexican drug cartels have effective control of our southern border and your worried about laws that do nothing but enslave Americans and keep drug prices high?
Has your enforcement policies done anything positive?
I say legalize it, tax it, and stigmatize it. Look, cigarette smoking is way down in this country. If the US had made tobacco illegal then about 90% of the population be smoking it just to tell the government piss off. However we kept it legal stigmatized it, and taxed it till prices are punitive and it’s been dropping steadily for decades - that’s the way to go.
Now as for you, go out and regulate.