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No, only parts of Western Europe have tended to be particularly lighter than the US on drug laws. Aggressive US drug laws are also mostly a recent phenomenon (r
by adventured 8y ago
No, only parts of Western Europe have tended to be particularly lighter than the US on drug laws. Aggressive US drug laws are also mostly a recent phenomenon (recent in the history of the country), the war on drugs era combined with mandatory minimum sentencing. For the majority of US history, there were few drug laws at all.
Nearly all of Asia, comprising 35-40% of the world population, lives under far stricter drug laws than exist in the US.
The US will federally legalize marijuana at some point in the next decade, as enough states legalize it. China is definitely not going to follow, you can expect them to hold firm on that. There's a chance that given some time (within two decades after the US legalizes it perhaps), South Korea and Japan will be seriously considering it. The US influence on those two nations will play a big role in the attitude change, and it'll still take a long time.