Legalization the way you want it will never happen. Just face facts.
The best examples you have are alcohol and cigarettes. You’re talking larger more powerful federal law enforcement to collect the taxes, catch bootleggers, local cops will still arrest underage and public intoxication, etc.
Soon, gardens growing pot will be regulated like swimming pools - inspectors on your property to collect home grown taxes.
Official medical lists of drug abusers, government programs for rehab, children taken from homes due to exposure.
You all aren’t thinking it through. Big brother will get a foot in your front door with legalization.
That seems to be your vision, some powerful entity in control so all is just as you like it, but it certainly isn't mine. Or perhaps you're just being defeatist. If I had a Dollar for each time I've heard something like "I agree with you but it'll never happen", I could go on a nice word cruise. And that would be lovely.
I have already discussed the perils that would likely come through taxation, government control of distribution channels, tracking of users and so forth, and I don't propose replacing a failure with something any thinking person can plainly see is doomed to become another.
If you wish to speak in terms of the lesser of two evils dismissing all other possibilities out of hand, you're not giving the issue the attention it deserves. The Greens have a slogan they like to use when running a candidate against a Democrat. "If you don't vote for what you want, you'll never get it." Now, you can go with the attitude, well, it's the Greens so it must be stupid (The Netherlands is socialist), but that betrays a closed mind. In my opinion, it's one of the most profound political sayings I ever heard and I try very hard to give it all due heed.
And I can use it in this argument and say no. I'm not going to be pigeonholed.
You list a number of potential increases in state power that would accompany legalization, but which of those do we not have already under our system of extensive criminalization of drug use?
Sure, maybe if drugs were legalized some revenuers would erroneously show up at my door looking to collect taxes for drugs I'm not actually producing. I'd have to go through the trouble of explaining that I don't produce drugs, and maybe let them look around my place to make sure.
But right now, I might also get a visit from the police based on erroneous information that I possess drugs. Only this time, it's not going to be a matter of answering a few questions and letting them poke around a bit. Under our current drug war, if the police show up at my place looking for drugs they are going to be knocking down doors, pointing guns in my face, and generally tearing my place apart.
Kids are already taken from homes because of drug use. Cops already enforce laws against public intoxication. How could the state get any more intrusive when it comes to drugs than it already is?