I don't need to contradict you—there's certainly been billions and billions spent on the war on drugs in this country, but the closest I can come to the $1 trillion amount you quote is over a 41 year period from 1971-2012. From what I can find, the latest annual cost is more like $78.5 billion, which includes healthcare, addiction treatment and criminal justice/law enforcement. That comes from a revised statement in March, 2018 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The $1 trillion quote comes from an article on CNN.

That's still a lot of money. And yes, we do have the highest incarceration rate according to the stats I can find, and it does appear that a significant part of that is drug related, though there appears to be a discrepancy of just how high the percentage is.

Regardless, there is a lot of money, time and effort being spent on drug enforcement, drug treatment and drug related health care. And those figures don't really tell the full tale, because there's affects on private insurance, as well, along with costs that employers incur for drug tests (which admittedly might continue anyway if drug laws were repealed), and any of a number of associative costs that are related or indirectly related.

There is, too, a toll on society, one that's harder to measure in dollars and cents, but can probably be found by piecing different data points together.

Where I wanted to go with my previous comment is this: regardless of whether or not drugs are legal, there is a cost. And it's not just in dollars. And my concern is, though I have no way of knowing how much, that if drugs were legal, without any other change in the way people are or the way society is, that the numbers who would use who are for whatever reason impeded from it now because it's illegal, would rise. How much, how quickly, and so forth, I don't know how to predict. It just stands to reason that if something that was illegal becomes legal, more folks are going to do it because there's nothing to stop them, other than some moral code that I'm afraid has eroded enough in our country that it wouldn't be much of a determent.

So, what I'm trying to point out is, for everything that might be solved by legalizing it, new problems and issues crop up, and new impacts on society from dollars to costs that are difficult to quantify arise.

I think the way things are happening now, where individual states have been legalizing marijuana for medicinal and/or recreational purposes is about the best way (providing it's considered a best way) to go about it. Even though the federal law prohibits its use, I don't see a lot of federal law enforcement running around Oregon shutting down shops or fining state government. I would imagine it's similar in other states. The feds here seem more intent on protecting government land so it can turn around and burn senselessly than they are in enforcing federal drug laws.

I really think you and I are on the same track here. I guess I'm just trying to point out pitfalls. It's taken us 47 years now to get to where we're at, and it's not going to be resolved overnight with the flick of a presidential ball point pen, or the rubber stamp of Congressional approval.

It's been proven time and again that any industry that falls under the taxation and regulation of government has a more difficult time staying in business and thriving than it would if there were no government oversight or taxing. Which I would say would extend to all of the drug trade were the laws repealed. But in such a case, the war would shift away from the ATF to the IRS and other regulatory agencies. That in and of itself opens up a whole other can of worms. :)