Legalizing drugs will of course result in higher usage
Which part of "significantly" did you not understand?
Where do you get evidence that illegal drugs made legal will not still be distributed by illegal means...last information I saw from Colorado is the illegal pot trade is still flourishing...
Illegal cigarettes are a factor only in those liberal cities that tax them astronomically; if legal-pot states don't excessively tax or restrict market entry, illegal pot will eventually be about as big as illegal alcohol.
So, what you are saying is that to feed your libertarian fantasy about some misguided understanding of freedom you are happy to have millions more suffer if only we can legalize and make free market available drugs which result in massive harm not just to those who use them, but to those around them. Let me ask you something, do you think an addict without money to supply his drug (alcohol included) will not do harm to get his drug?
It is bad business all around, when one takes morality out of the laws we end up with similar things like what Nazi’s and Communist secularists created. Indeed, we are not on our way there, this nation is not a good nation anylonger. We kill tens of millions of babies for convenience...and that isn’t enough...we have accepted that the abortionists cut apart live bodies and sell the parts...the vast majority of those who do violent crime have some drug/alcohol in their blood system. I really don’t care if drug dealers spend their life in jail, it is called justice.
BTW, your statistic is backwards...to say “no good evidence the drug criminalization significantly reduces” of very addictive substances is a spewed stat. Indeed, if looked at properly from that statistic one may easily infer that legalization will have a significant impact on use.
Please try to discern what you read and write...