Perhaps I'm getting into semantics, but I've heard the distinction made between legalization and decriminalization. Based on my understanding, 'decriminalizatio

Perhaps I'm getting into semantics, but I've heard the distinction made between legalization and decriminalization. Based on my understanding, 'decriminalization' is essentially "don't prosecute someone for using drugs," which can shift funding away from police and toward health care, focusing our societal attention accordingly. Contrast this with 'legalization', which I would phrase as having a sanctioned way to legally sell to the general public. Am I wrong here? When I see people saying, "Legalize all drugs," I interpret it to mean, "make it so anyone can sell drugs and pay taxes on them" which seems pretty extreme to me. But "decriminalize all drugs" makes a lot more sense in this context. To be clear, it seems logical to me that we stop arresting people for using drugs, but it doesn't seem reasonable to go a step further and allow retail sales of opioids. (Again, it's complicated by the catchall term 'drugs', where retail pot sales are much less problematic than the example of opioids.) Edit: Recognizing that exceedingly few people are likely to wake up one day and say, "I think I'll try heroin," maybe there's less of a difference between these two terms than I imagine? If legalization means regulations on the quality/purity of the product, for example, then 'sanctioning' retail sales would provide a benefit that 'decriminalization' wouldn't have.