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I keep seeing people bring up Portugal when talking about policies like this. I admit I don't know anything about Portugal. But I will say that I am fairly unconvinced by these proposals that legalizing something will not affect uptake at all.
A lot of gun rights supporters say "An armed society is a polite society." I think the more obvious "legalizing thing makes thing more common" is trivially true. Guns are legal in America. This has led to lots of people buying guns. This has also led to gun violence statistics going insanely high compared to countries where there are no guns. It's led to increased gun suicides, it's led to increased gun thefts, it's led to increased negligent discharges, and (on a more positive note) it's led to more self-defense with guns. But I would have to see a lot of evidence to tell me that there is less violence in America than there would be if there were no guns.
Ditto for weed. A lot of people already smoked weed before it was legalized. In my state, it's legal now, and no surprises, weed seems a lot more common. I can't tell you any statistics, but there are a lot of people really open about smoking weed and outright tell me they smoke up every day after work. I don't think it's controversial to say that the lifting of punishment for doing a thing leads to more uptake of doing the thing. You've just removed one of the reasons some people never took up the thing.
We also see the same dynamic working in reverse with tobacco, I think. I get the idea that a lot of people my age who smoke started when they were like, 12. There will always be cases like that, probably. But smoking uptake has decreased quite a bit among the youth now that everyone around them looks down on cigarettes for smelling bad and being bad for you. Bans on selling nicotine to under 21 helped with that. Putting all kinds of restrictions on cigarette companies, forcing them to display warnings everywhere, helped with that. Taxing the living shit out of nicotine helped with that. Being hostile to this drug helps reduce uptake.
Legalizing something is the opposite of being hostile. You might be right, uptake might not increase by that much. But it will almost certainly increase, and it will HURT to lose relatives to this shit and think to yourself "gee, the government WANTS people to get addicted to drugs that make them rob their families and kill themselves. They made it legal and started taxing it." I worked in a gas station once and witnessed this 60 year old grandma on oxygen buy two bottles of vodka every time I saw her, her hands shaking, more and more, every time I saw her. Totally legal, and I had no choice but to sell her the stuff that was killing her. I hated her for making me do it to her, and for being so weak that she let it be done to herself.
I don't think Americans should be sacrificed to help people who aren't in America.
Where do you live that you can buy vodka in the gas station?
I live in rural Illinois. I think the owner just has to get a liquor license. The owner used to own the grocery store and the gas station both, but let go of the grocery store because it didn't make hardly any money at all. Apparently the liquor license stays with the person, not the business. I think you can buy vodka at Casey's, too.
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