And yet there are lots of European countries with low crime rates and liberal drug laws and low usage. That is the point. There is no clear correlation here. B

And yet there are lots of European countries with low crime rates and liberal drug laws and low usage. That is the point. There is no clear correlation here. But these asian countries and the european ones do have a number of things in common which is different from the US. Neither has poverty problems on the scale found in the US. Neither have racial conflict at the level found in the US. And how comparable is really Singapore? It is a single city, tightly controlled with 3x the police force of a regular western country, where they practice DDR like surveillance in the sense that citizens are taught to report each other for all sorts of minor transgressions. The US is a lot more similar to Europe so if one was ever too look at alternative policies I think looking at European experiences makes a lot more sense for the US than looking at Asian countries which are vastly different historically, culturally and in what political system they currently employ.