Won't end well. Expect a wave of migration to WA and the Rockies in the next few years.
That's the only potential problem with the law. It needs to be applied nationwide, otherwise people will likely migrate there, which could cause a lot of problems.
Agreed, drug addiction shouldn't be treated as a crime.
People treat drug addiction as a crime because they moralize it; they view the use/abuse of drugs as a personal moral failing. That may be true in certain instances, but existing social science supports the view that when a social problem like drug abuse is so widespread, it has an underlying societal cause. As such, we must find the cause and eliminate it, while also treating those who abuse drugs, not as criminals, but as victims that deserve social support through an adequate public health response. That means decriminalizing all drugs, investing in and opening public health clinics and rehabilitation centers, and ensuring access to mental health care services. Even then, that's just treating the symptoms of the underlying societal disease, whatever that may be.While there might be a language discrepancy between the two points of view, I see no necessary contradiction between them. Most actions, period, have some sort of underlying social cause; most vices, crimes, and sins the same. If a man is a serial adulterer, we have every right to ask what made him this way; the fact remains that he still failed to perform his contractual obligations. Likewise, one is allowed to disapprove of their friend or associate's use of vice--alcohol, marijuana, otherwise--while realizing that there are social reasons that set them apart. That said, the lack of deterrence (I should clarify, deterrence is not a crime control strategy I wholeheartedly endorse by any means; this is an example) may be one of the circumstances that allowed for greater penetration of vices. Availability, the same. That those in the social control community have an interest in reining in poverty, social disintegration, and the like, is something that we can probably agree on, though it is perhaps something that policy-makers have yet to fully embrace.
