> Unfortunately, in the United States I don't think we have a good regulatory framework for handling this situation
Why do we even need a regulatory framework? It's a plant: let people grow it if they want; let them ingest it if they want. Heck, let them crush the eaves and smear them all over their bodies while singing, 'Happy days are here again!' if that's what they want. That's what freedom is about: letting folks do their thing.
It's interesting because this gets into the entire "Do you have a right to your own body?" debate.
Just a side note: just because things are natural/plants doesn't mean they won't kill you. There are a ton of poisonous mushrooms out there for instance.
But anyway, if you want to eat poisonous mushrooms, you should be able to right? Should you be able to kill yourself? Do you have a right to what happens to your body after you die? Who..owns your body?
There are a ton of great articles out there on all of those questions and they all get into really weird grey legal areas. Have phun.
The age old problem of policy is how to design a system that catches the opportunists without accidentally capturing the altruists (not the right word but you get what I mean).
The hard drugs have ugly consequences for their users, and for their society as a whole. Look at how the Japanese in WWII legalized all drugs in China, and made heroin, in particular, cheap and easily available; they wanted to corrode the substance of Chinese civil society, and they did.
Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001 and they seem to be doing very well with it and have very few drug overdose related deaths. They have [3 deaths per million citizens](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/05/why-h...). I wouldn't be surprised if we had more drug enforcement related deaths in the US.
Portugal is also a _much_ smaller country, with less wealth inequality and systematic racial/socioeconomic divisions related to crime, poverty, drug use, etc. I'm not saying we shouldn't relax the drug laws in the US, but I don't think it's fair to assume that just because it works in Portugal it would work just as well here.
My rule of thumb is, "would I rather be in a room full of people on X (a variable, not the drug) or a room full of people on beer?" If the answer is X, which it almost always is, then I would rather make X more legally and socially acceptable than beer.
On the flip side, this drug and marajuana have marginal negative affects beyond being reactionally impared, which being very tired can also do. Are they going to outlaw being awake for more than 20 hours next?
Why do we even need a regulatory framework? It's a plant: let people grow it if they want; let them ingest it if they want. Heck, let them crush the eaves and smear them all over their bodies while singing, 'Happy days are here again!' if that's what they want. That's what freedom is about: letting folks do their thing.