But so what? Your laws are not stopping the use of marijuana, but are still supporting ruthless cartels.
If you mean that the laws are not completely effective, no argument. There are two reasons for this:
1. No law is ever completely effective. You need to write laws based on realistic expectations. Some have argued that what made Prohibition fail was that it was too broad–that a ban on distilled alcohol would have been easier to enforce, and accomplished many of the positive social objectives.
2. To a large extent, we stopped treating marijuana as a serious drug. I am old enough to remember when possession of an ounce or less was reduced from a misdemeanor to an infraction–and guess what! I couldn’t go to a concert anymore in Los Angeles without the disgusting smell of pot smoke.
Every law works at the margins. It doesn’t work perfectly. Sometimes, they barely work at all, if the law is too broad. But any law that criminalizes possession or sale, simply by prohibiting advertising and open sale, is going to drive up prices, and thus reduce demand and consumption. Since marijuana causes some people (at least young people) to have increased risk of schizophrenia, keeping it illegal has a net positive effect on that part of the problem.
I have no interest in seeing anyone going to jail for smoking pot. I do have an interest in seeing pot not as widely available as it was where I lived in California–where the police would just wave to teenagers smoking pot on the streets of Cotati.
