Originally Posted by BestXXXPorn

Actually no... stop to think about it a second.

First, gang related violence, cartels, etc... these would all go away if they have no product to sell. They're not about drugs, they're about money. The black market drives prices higher than anything else so the profit margin is huge. These high prices also cause users/addicts to have to start stealing, mugging, etc... in order to afford their next fix.

If you legalize all drugs then you evaporate the illegal drug market. Most ODs happen because of an inconsistency in product. An addict is used to shooting a certain amount but if the potency of that substance is suddenly increased from their norm -> overdose. By controlling the quality of the product you reduce the amount of ODs. You can then also provide clean needles to people to reduce the spread of disease.

So your taxes would actually go down. In fact, by taxing the drugs themselves you could put them to good use by creating clinics to actually treat addiction better rather than punishing people by sending them to prison (which only increases the habit).

If you need some proof, take a look at Portugal. They decriminalized every drug (although legalization would have been better). Since then, their drug addiction rate has been cut by 50%.