I think we probably agree to a large extent. There are a lot of comments here, so I want to quote one of my responses to another person in an effort to inject s

I think we probably agree to a large extent. There are a lot of comments here, so I want to quote one of my responses to another person in an effort to inject some consistency, but tl;dr the reason I think decriminalization is the issue is that AFAIK our criminal justice system is the only way we can confiscate drugs or force a person into treatment such as inpatient detox and/or rehab: """ To me it's not so much about punishing drug use (jail time), it's about stopping drug addiction (intervention and recovery). For example I think intervening in such a way that a user is confirmed to get at least a few hours of sleep before potentially using meth again would be a big start. I'll admit that I support confiscating drugs when found, but I'm not advocating that arrest is always appropriate. I am in favor of punishing selling meth, which I acknowledge is perhaps hypocritical given my other beliefs knowing that plenty of people sell to support their habits. I do think it's important to have a mechanism of mandatory intervention, and my non-lawyer understanding is that criminalizing drugs is really the only way to put mandatory intervention on the table. I met mothers who could not force their children into rehab, for example. I should be clear that I don't feel this way about all drugs, but I think that methamphetamine specifically poses a risk to the safety of both users and people around them that merits mandatory intervention. If we had functional mechanisms to to enact mandatory interventions for users that were non-criminal I'm definitely open to that. Depending on the targeted success rate it seems like inpatient detox + rehab would be required in many cases, and I am simply not aware of non-judicial ways we can force a person into those circumstances against their will (which in the case of meth I admit I support even if that opinion is controversial). I am not an expert, but nonetheless I'm now entangled with the topic as one that defines significant aspects of my life (loss of smell and hearing, PTSD, facial disfiguration). I think we can do better than we have been, both recently and since Nixon, but I think that having tough conversations is part of how we'll get better. My experience is that people in my situation frequently have our perspectives invalidated as "politically incorrect" or otherwise irrelevant [...], and I wanted to speak up to make sure people know that we exist and we don't want our numbers to grow. """