"Jai jai shiv shankar, kaata laage na kankar, ke pyaala tere naam ka piya..."
NCB:

In boyhood, bollywood movies made "charas ganja" sound like evil poison and I once asked my grandpa what it was and he said "nothing more than a way for police to make money by harassing innocent people. Those movies make gold sound evil too."

Addiction is a health issue not a crime. Try telling that to India though which is more puritanical and inquisitional than even the most vile evangelicals.

Aghast to read tweets from otherwise sensible people that giving someone drugs should qualify as homicide. This is exactly the kind of cruel Reagan nonsense that destroyed American inner cities. Millions of lives destroyed by incarcerating people for just selling, even having.

This isn't even a theoretical argument anymore. There is lots of evidence from countries and American states that have decriminalized drugs. That's the sane empathetic policy. And marijuana legalization actually hurts criminals.

I remember a hilariously bizarre whine from a gangster in Maximum City that crime had gone up because Rao-Manmohan import restrictions and thus made smuggling gold obsolete. If they could go back to smuggling, they would give up extortion. Same principle with drugs.

Decriminalize drugs. Any drugs. Even the hardest drugs. Decriminalize them and pump all that money wasted on "policing" into rehab and counselling. The cartels will go out of business. They only came into existence after mid 20th century criminalization.

Also, while it is true that marijuana is less harmful than coke, heroin, meth, even alcohol & tobacco, that should NOT be the argument for decriminalization. The core policy problem is turning someone's decision to ingest something in their own body as a crime.

Btw that's how human civilization existed until about 50 years ago. Your grandparents will tell you how common it was to give a little opium to a colicky child. Now we know better. But imagine if all those grandmas were arrested. If Lestrade arrested Sherlock for his coke.

Criminalizing drug abuse is like criminalizing obesity.

It is important to note that decriminalization and legalization doesn't ensure a utopian heaven. Some will still abuse drugs and might even destroy their lives. But better they destroy their own lives on their own terms rather than be treated as criminals by the state.