I agree. I'm torn by this as a conservative libertarian. Philosophically, I lean towards decriminalization of most drugs. Up until the 20th century, there were very few drug laws in this country. This certainly led to health problems, but our 'war on drugs' clearly has not eliminated the health effects of drug use. I am also inclined to think that lessening the power and profits of organized crime and elements of the federal government, for whom drug illegality is the prime source, is desirable as well.
The problem is that the government would then serve as a drug provider instead of an anti-drug enforcer, which is probably worse. If marijuana were made legal, it would be regulated and heavily taxed. The federal government would then have an incentive to keep this tax revenue coming in. As others have said, legalizing marijuana simply would not be a 'live and let live' libertarian move in our political climate. It would result in more costs in the health care arena that would be borne, as ever, by taxpayers.
I also envision the poor service one encounters at the DMV, post office, etc. becoming even worse as many of the already incompetent state and federal workers would be free to chronically indulge in their free time...
It would likely be better had there never been any laws at all, however, we have what we have, and I don’t envision them suddenly saying, “Oh, ok, well, never mind, we wash our hands of the whole thing.” And that’s where I see the real problem. They will tweak here and there and make either a bigger, or just a different mess.
One thing I like about John Stossel, altho I don’t always agree 100% with him (and he seems ok with people NOT agreeing with him 100% unlike many libertarians) is that he admits that it’s not a perfect solution. There WOULD be problems. I like the honesty, which I don’t often see from the pro-legalization crowd. That’s all I ask, in the debate. Lets debate with complete and total honesty so people can make really informed decisions. The cartels won’t go away. They will find something to do.