Well, barriers to entry matter. If you're craving a drug and it's sold in a convenient store around the corner, you might purchase it more frequently than if you had to buy it from potentially dangerous people in a seedy part of town. That said, as with any bad habit I'm sure usage would still decrease over time for most individuals as they mature or if healthier alternatives are readily available.
When you buy it from dangerous people, you have to be in contact with dangerous people. It gives dangerous people leverage against you and people who care about you.
I've known many a dealer in my lifetime, and a distant family member who spent some time incarcerated for 'high level' activity, who gives me long tales of how the business works as well.
Dealers don't assault, endanger or attack random customers who just stop buying.
That's totally absurd, and that someone would suggest it - indicates that they are getting their information from Netflix/Hollywood films or something, not reality.
The vast majority of dealers are actually fairly normal people anyhow.
Well exuse me, I didn't know i was talking to a renneissance man. Addicts wheel and deal with each other, rack up debts to eachother, steal from one another. Some of them buy wholesale from larger distributors, usually with credit, to be repaid with interest or else. They rob, assault, rape and kill eachother over this stuff. I wish i was making this up.
Doctors in emergency rooms usually have instructions to confiscate any illegal drugs they discover on OD-patients, but are faced with the very real dilemma of leaving the patient at their creditors mercy. This can cause real harm (as in "First do no harm") to the patient and their prospects of recovery or harm reduction.
Maybe if that someone was just smoking pot and otherwise paid taxes. This particular group of drug users are not the central point of concern of the UN Special Assembly, even though its part of the wider problem. They are not dying in the streets and they are not socially marginalized. Allthough (anecdotally) i've known several fumb pot-smoking ducks who thought they could finance their proclivity through distribution and wound up several thousand dollars in debt to people who take names and chew bubble-gum.
If you tell people they can't skip in a certain lane on the sidewalk they will skip in that certain lane. There will always be people who just want to cross the line because the lines existence makes them curious or "rebellious". It's like a psychological balance for some people. Being told "no" really makes some people want something.
The counter of this is why underage drinking is higher in the US than elsewhere. Society made it a taboo and that attracts people. In countries with lower age limits there's less underage drinking. The culture itself doesn't see it as such a big deal and there's no pent up against.
Shouldn't it, though? Otherwise you still have the crime and violence associated with drug use. It's certainly better than having possession also criminalized, but is it good enough? I'm not so sure.
I would suggest that maybe it's ok to continue to criminalize the sale of the more dangerous stuff, say of Schedule I drugs, but... well, marijuana is still on the Sched I list, so it's not like that list is particular scientifically rigorous.
> If you're craving a drug and it's sold in a convenient store around the corner
But it goes with greater awareness of the risks as well, and once it's in the public, you can expect a lot more discussion about its usage rather than a too simple "it's bad" attitude.
That can be anybody. Your old grandma, to this beautifull lady, or more common that guy in the corner, but not only "dangerous people" otherwise nobody will buy it.
