I never said it did (although if some people switched from legal violence-inducing alcohol to legal marijuana, that would likely mean less violence).
And yes, many of these violent people are alcoholics and should be institutionalized.
So only those alcohol users who are addicted and violent should be institutionalized? Makes sense to me ... but the same restrictions should apply to institutionalizing users of other drugs.
You are using violence as a strawman in advocating the legalization of drugs
No, I'm using it to point out that your professed goal of "leav[ing] the innocent and the sane alone" does not fit your proposed policy inasmuch as you treat the more violence-inducing drug less strictly (and surely we agree that violence is the epitome of not "leav[ing] the innocent and the sane alone").
My agenda is to reduce violence, drug abuse and homelessness, regardless of the substance
If that were true, you would treat the addictive violence-inducing drug alcohol comparably strictly as other drugs.
As far as alcohol vs marijuana, true.
By an large, those who use marijuana are not violent.
I would agree, by and large. However it does not answer any issues of violence by those who use both, individually or simultaneously. I don't see the issue as one of drugs vs alcohol, but of the mentally ill self-medicating themselves with either or both. The drug problem in the USA did not explode, as it did, until after the passage of the CMHC Act. The medications available in the hospitals at the time (and now) were worse than the mental disease. Once the mental patients were out, they sought medications that were more tolerable and the path was usually alcohol, then pot, then..? And frankly, I don't blame them.
But we're just posting past each other on this thread. Your agenda is to legalize pot for recreational intoxication. I really don't have a problem with that any more than booze. However, those who are severely, mentally ill, should be rounded up and hospitalized first and the situation watched carefully for those who are prone to substance abuse. Those would go into institutions as well. And my position is not that I favor depriving persons of their liberty, but of the realization that we don't really have effective treatments for bi-polars, psychotics, depressives and other mental illness. Better that they spend their lives getting high, in a garden-like setting with a high fence as well, than hanging around off-ramps.
From homelessness, to drug abuse, to firearms issues, the mentally ill have effected American society more than the public realize. Since the American Psychiatric Association gained so much influence in the federal government through the Kennedy's during the 1960's, the inmates have been in charge of the asylum. Much as illegals have been in charge of the border.