To remove a tiny fragment of a statutory problem, while maintaining the majority of the statute(s), and continuing the statute's use as a revenue generator for governments, police,
prison guard unions, lawyers, the court system, and "potentially competing industries."
The harassment would still exist. Excuses like when a cop says "I thought I smelled something" would still be "uncontestable evidence usable in court." You'd still have your herb "civilly forfeited." You'll still get "ticketed." You'll still pay fines. "I thought I smelled..." would still entitle "authority figures" to car searches, home raids, body cavity searches, and
everything else it currently does. You won't have a "criminal" record...but you'll still have an "offense record." And that "no longer a criminal" record will still be used against you, at every
opportunity.
If we were to decriminalize cannabis today,
the only thing that would change is that
you wouldn't "immediately" be arrested or "immediately" get a "criminal" record. Everything else would remain basically the same.
Decriminalization is little more than a scaled-down version of legalize, used by those who don't
understand that they really mean to say "Repeal".
This is because it still doesn't end the problem of cannabis prohibition, but allows it to continue almost completely unchanged while giving the public the mistaken
impression that anything of actual substance has been changed.
eg: If you really want to see cannabis prohibition put to an end in your lifetime, we need to REPEAL the statutes that created, expanded, and maintained it over the last century. Then it'll be over.
We've failed to do "what we say we want" for over 50 years.
It's time we just got it done, so we can move on to the next global issue which desperately needs our attention. (Hint: There are at least one or two more of those we can easily tackle next; Banking fraud would be a good "next to fix" item!)
