Now that our local police (and federal agencies) are armed to the teeth with surplus gear from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and have SWAT members aching for a chance to use their new toys, we can only imagine the amount of destruction and death that would have been visited upon America's citizens if the former drug laws were aggressively enforced.
Not every evil can be best addressed by attempting to ban it. A lot of wealth is “urinated” away in order to rid the country of 1/10 of its pot. Life is certainly about more than dollars and cents, but even in dollars could it cost more to put a drug rehab place on every corner?
This is the so called “victimless” (self victimizing) crimes. Faith became flaccid and law was called in to do what grace was unwilling to muster itself to address. The devastation that followed was quite predictable to anyone who knew the bible. Not talking here about evils like abortion which have other victims. Or about crimes against others committed “under the influence.”