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Marijuana legalization opponents often seek to cast "decriminalization" as a sensible middle-ground alternative. But decrim still has huge problems, the biggest of which is that use and possession remain under the purview of the criminal justice system.
If an officer sees or suspects use of any kind, that's often used as a probable cause to set off a whole chain of events that end at a citation if you're lucky, but also can escalate to detention, arrest, asset seizure, etc etc.
And even for just simple possession of below-threshold amounts, punishments tend to escalate for multiple infractions.
The true middle ground on marijuana policy looks more like what Vermont has -- use and possession are legal. Cops can't bust down your door because a neighbor saw a plant. But there's no commercial market. No ads, no profit margins, no Altria.
Vermont's policy's not perfect either. There's no tax revenue, and it still leaves room for a black market for people who don't want to grow their own. Will take another couple years to see how that all sorts itself out
But make no mistake: under decriminalization marijuana use *remains illegal.* And that's a huge problem if you're trying to stop the criminal justice system from ruining lives over a plant.
