Whether it is legal or not, LEO’s will still be on the front lines when it comes to dealing with people who are drunk and on drugs. Nobody’s going to call Skeeter’s AA sponsor when he shows up at the bar 47 hours into his meth binge, pisses on someone’s car and then decides to fight the first person to confront him about this behavior. Cops will be dealing with that no matter how the substances he consumed are scheduled by the DEA.
The question is whether or not social outcomes will be improved with legalization. I know of more than a few people who NEEDED that jail time to turn their life around. I know of a few people who didn’t.
If we could somehow use fewer public resources to produce overall better outcomes, I’d be on board with it. Knowing what I know about people who are in to hard drugs, I’m not sure making any of these things more accessible, less expensive or limiting their consequences will actually accomplish any of these things.
I also don’t really think it is appropriate to extrapolate the reasoning behind alcohol, tobacco and marijuana policy to hard drugs. I’ve known a few junkies, meth heads and coke addicts over the years, and the behavior that goes along with those drugs is, in my experience, much more destructive to self and others than your typical bar patron or joe six pack.
That said, there’s plenty of horrible stuff that goes hand-in-hand with alcohol, and I’m not trying to understate the severity of alcohol problems. What I’m saying is the percentage of people who use alcohol without major problems is much, much greater than the people can keep their shit together on meth, crack, heroin and other hard drugs.