Even people who think that MJ is immoral or wrong may be against outright ban. It is not purpose of criminal justice to enforce virtue or morality per se, unless one believes in very strict interpretation of their religion (even religious police powers in Saudi Arabia were recently watered down). Victimless crimes will always wake some kind of unease in free-minded people.
P.S.: Politicians may not always act on wishes of silent majority. If the minority is strong and aggressive enough, they will be tempted to yield. Same dynamics as on Twitter, in principle; that is why ballot initiatives, where individual voters cannot be intimidated into voting in a certain way, are so important to democracy.
Agree. I'm a fan of decriminalizing all of it, even though I believe things like meth and heroin to be highly destructive. Negative legal consequences do very little to stop it. I'd rather the money go to something more productive.
Portugal is one of the hallmarks here where decriminalizing the drugs, and then spending the money on outreach, safe needle programs, and recovery centers have helped them not just with drug addiction problems they had, but also in lowering the knock-on effects of not having these things (like HIV and Hep C from dirty needles).
Like a lot of areas of life, a softer more compassionate touch yields far better results than putting people into prison and throwing away the key.
P.S.: Politicians may not always act on wishes of silent majority. If the minority is strong and aggressive enough, they will be tempted to yield. Same dynamics as on Twitter, in principle; that is why ballot initiatives, where individual voters cannot be intimidated into voting in a certain way, are so important to democracy.