Legalization was popular for weed because weed is relatively benign but decriminalization is what's needed for harder drugs.
People get these mixed up and use them interchangeably but they're very different. There will (and should) never be heroin shops that look like Apple stores like there are for weed.
Decrim can be for production, distribution and possession but people generally use it to mean possession. That means that possession of amounts for personal use are not a criminal matter, which makes sense if we see it as an addiction that needs to be treated. In that scenario, production and distribution can be (and often are) illegal.
There are other nuances in how to handle decriminalization in terms of social services offered and how to disrupt demand.
Hard drugs are already effectively decriminalized in CA. When I see cops literally turn the other way to not have to see someone smoke a rock and have to write them a ticket thats how you know. I can’t say that this policy has lead to anyone getting help. If anything it enables people to slip further into the abyss once they come here from places that would otherwise prosecute that behavior when its done in public in the open like that.
People get these mixed up and use them interchangeably but they're very different. There will (and should) never be heroin shops that look like Apple stores like there are for weed.
Decrim can be for production, distribution and possession but people generally use it to mean possession. That means that possession of amounts for personal use are not a criminal matter, which makes sense if we see it as an addiction that needs to be treated. In that scenario, production and distribution can be (and often are) illegal.
There are other nuances in how to handle decriminalization in terms of social services offered and how to disrupt demand.