Alabama suffers crime because of drugs, it punishes people because of drugs, it builds billion dollar prisons and signs billion dollar prison healthcare deals because its justice system is overrun by the consequences of drugs. It forces people to spend lifetimes in prison because of drugs, it uses the presence of drugs as an excuse to put addicts back inside, and if it put a fraction of the effort into rehabilitation it would save more people, more money and more families.
Addiction should go down since legalizing the drugs would make room for less potent forms of the drugs. So something like cocaine could be replaced with coca leaf tea, etc. It doesn’t completely eliminate it, but it ought to bring it way down.
I don’t disagree, it ‘ought to’, but my point is simply that even if it doesn’t the benefits of legalization to both the addicted community and society in general are more than enough to justify legalization.
I doubt a “less potent form of drugs” will happen exactly as you imagine. Drug potency has skyrocketed because logistically it’s easier to smuggle smaller quantities of a high potency substance. I personally think we would see a resurgence of drugs and doses of what people were previously doing before importing them got so difficult. What would be interesting though would seeing if any new analogs could be discovered with shorter term effects especially in the world of stimulants.