and probably spend the tax dollars to educate society about using said drugs responsibly in a controlled fashion, and you probably have a pretty good system.
After all, a big part of the problem is a lack of knowledge in the users on how to manage their use of the substances.
I think what people want and what people need run counter-current. I know too many people who wasted their lives getting high: there is a feedback here. Opportunities close, more time is spent getting high and `smoke weed everyday` becomes a mantra. The only flip side is that some of the folks I know can play a mean bass guitar.
I smoke weed every day, and have done for a number (perhaps 7? years).
In those seven years I have done:
1) a undergraduate degree
2) a PhD (almost)
3) Spent three years as a full time professional student representative (nee politician).
4) Written approximately 80K words of fiction and non fiction.
5) Learned statistics, programming and web analytics.
So, perhaps weed is necessary but not sufficient for someone to waste their lives. That being said, I have seen many people who get lazy and just waste their lives, but I suspect that many of them would have found another crutch, if they didn't have the weed.
After all, a big part of the problem is a lack of knowledge in the users on how to manage their use of the substances.