All excellent points. Thanks for posting.
The Portuguese system still seems to be working very effectively, where they tackled the problem from a harm-reduction perspective, allowing social services to assist people who genuinely have a drug problem, just as you said.
Personally, I don't think state regulation or taxes are necessary or desirable, because it creates system with a high concentration of power - which is what allowed governments to start these wars on drugs to begin with, causing all this violence and wastage of resources.
Kudos!
@churdtzu I will have a good think about tax side of it, not my ultimate aim here anyway. On the regulation side, I think it would be good for the Drug makers to be regulated (on a quality basis), so that they are liable for mistakes, in the same way Pharmaceutical Companies are..
Yes, they absolutely should be liable for their mistakes.