Ask Lemmygrad

Not necessarily. Keeping them illegal allows the state to eat their cake and have it too. It gives them leverage over those using it illegally, access to black markets, and the ability to use it as justification to arrest and commit violence.

Demonize it enough, like the US has, and your stormtroopers have carte blanche to crack skulls and step on necks of whomever is needed to solve the “drug problem”. That demonization is waning from its 90s highs, but it’s still a very useful tool for the state.

With drugs illegal and popular in counter-culture movements you can use it to weed out the population. White kid with an ounce of weed? Slap on the wrist. Brown kid with an ounce of weed? 5 years of slavery. Just casually reinforcing racism and oppressing minorities.

If they catch someone the state really doesn’t like then they have leverage. Rat out your friends, become an informant, or face prison.

I’m not necessarily against chemical exploration, but the capitalist police state will weaponize it by supplying the black market with cheap drugs, encouraging their use in revolutionary, counter-culture, and minority communities (among others), then scraping up anyone they don’t like. The damage left in its wake is inconsequential.