Off-topic, but I wonder if decriminalizing all drugs will kill the cartel profits. From what I can see, they make a ton of profit due to the illegality(risk-profit) and this big profit is how they became so powerful. Food for thought I guess.
One of the biggest motivations for decriminalization is to do disincentivize black markets.
For stimulants maybe and yeah your shady neighborhood cocaine dealer will probably get you some LSD and resell at a markup price after getting it from the friendly neighborhood psychonaut or public relations guy that needs to be stocked on MDMA for parties, but that's not their main job.
A single sheet goes for about 400$ in most places if you have good connections, or at least it used to. That's 100 doses, which is going to take a lot longer to run through compared a similar amount of weed, for example. So all around it's bad business, but somebody like Petaluma Al was probably making a decent living.
When I think psychedelic dealers I'm thinking more about MDMA which is/was kinda profitable and have customers coming back when we had parties and festivals.
I’ve never heard this before; it seems like something I should know; respecfully, would you mind elaborating?
The reason to keep on doing it and learn how to deal with the body feelings it's because it's a very unique mind opening experience, only that it can be a bit too much. With the right set and setting and the right doses LSD+weed can be as "mind expanding" as ingesting DMT or a salvia breakthrough, or even wilder. If you don't have the right company it can be dangerous though as you will probably be very very very easy to influence, it's not uncommon to just hallucinate what other people tell you.
It's not super well known in the community nowadays and people going for the "psychonautic" exploratory experience use other drugs, but mostly any psychedelic if you edge it or do the right amount will take you "there". To do it with LSD you need to take like, a lot, but the LSD dose that will break you through if you also smoke weed at certain moments of the trip, is way lower, like 1/2 or 1/4 of a usual "heroic" dose.
If your mind is ready or open enough for this type of experiences you need to be careful, also if you are prone to psychosis or dissociation. It can be done safely but you need someone taking care of you, and also maybe prepare with the right diet and stuff like that. Also if you are trying it by upping the dose slightly you also have to be careful, because LSD+weed sometimes has a "reverse tolerance". Like, after an intense experience let's say on 150ug + a dab, your actual LSD "tolerance" may go lower as you are more "sensitive" or "open", and if you up it a bit to see what happens you will trigger a very intense out of body experience.
The "danger" of something like that is that you are usually not aware that your mind can do it, so it's kinda scary and intense. You can read about it but it's like for example reading about stuff like mental disease or orgasm vs. actually experiencing it. The raw realism of whatever place you "go to" and the intensity of the stuff you feel or you "know" is happening or will happen is always mind-blowing. Even after you've been through it a couple times.
The dangers of exposing yourself to this kind of experiences is that sometimes you bring "feelings" or ideas back, that don't integrate well with your daily life without help. There's an ancient term in the community which is "chasing the dragon", which reflects some kind of long-term manic quest to visit or meet some kind of entity of place or state of mind that's like the "ultimate high". It's not like, a super bad thing to do, but it doesn't integrate well with the life of most people and is generally regarded as an unhealthy obsession.
Legalizing drugs would come at the cost of governments and cities taxing it and putting it above what price is on the street for cartel product. The cartels can easily undercut on price because they don’t pay any taxes.
People are happy to pay a 28%+ tax here in CO for legalized, recreational marijuana - a relatively expensive-to-produce product.
There's also the fact that buyers ALSO care about the risk. Many people will only purchase drugs legally, if given both options.
It doesn't come with any consumer protections
I think the happy medium is legalization + a decriminalized framework
Many methods fail because the legalization-only path just creates a parallel criminal path
Slightly more seriously, obviously people will continue to smuggle if there's a profit to be made, but a lot of consumers and producers will quite willingly switch to legal options if they can. Jail time is pretty expensive too.