Well I originally wrote a reply explaining my opinion of a topic which I don't know much about (I don't live in America, nor have I ever been there and I've never touched illicit drugs).
Can someone please provide an open-minded explanation of what America's drug situation is? My limited understanding is below
- Lots of people in America have drug problems
- Weed is harmless in moderation provided it hasn't been laced with cocaine
- People found guilty of dealing drugs are not permitted to go to school
- Foreigners with drug-related charges on their criminal record are without exception denied American visas
- Punishing drug addicts doesn't work
- More and more states in the US are legalising marijuana
And adding information from the comments and article above
- The war on drugs has been a fucking failure (why?)
- Lots of people have opioid problems due to prescription drugs
What happens to people caught smoking marijuana in states where its illegal?
In order then
Sure, same as anywhere really.
Any substance has the potential to mess with you but yes the harms of it are both way below many legal substances and in general parlance most would consider it safe.
By school many would mean college/university. Also "dealing" may just mean the weight you have on you when you are caught. Also while some admissions places might overlook it then it is more that federal loans/aid are denied to various types of convictions and that tanks your chances as much as anything (in case you had not heard college/university in the US is an expensive hobby).
It applies to more crimes than that but it is a major thing for denial of visas.
It might work in some cases but I can see more harm than help in many cases.
Seemingly, much to the dislike of the federal government. Afraid I have not looked into the remaining states and what is likely to go there -- some may have taken a moral stance but that sweet sweet tax revenue and less crowded jails has a habit of changing moral convictions.
Short version. People like to get high. Millennia worth of history demonstrates this. Getting high is also quite manageable for a lot of people so a particularly amusing thing is when people are told it is super bad and will ruin you instantly you fairly quickly find out you have been lied to.
Yes but that warrants further exploration. Many opiates are amazing painkillers, some of the best modern medicine knows of, and can touch or manage things almost all other types (or maybe even all other types) will not. Habit forming was once the word but addictive is the currently preferred one, and they are good at that too with the added bonus that the tolerance to them builds up rather quickly and withdrawal is not just "irritable and feel like shit" of many other things but actually dangerous in and of itself. It has also been noted that many doctors in the US will give them out far far more readily than many other places, not necessarily like sweeties/candy but it makes most medics I know elsewhere in the world pause. Reasons for this vary but some have looked at a massive PR campaign by the opiates sector a while back. At the same time many legislators in many states, and the people enforcing the laws, displayed one of the all too common spectacular failures in understanding of medicine when seeing the resulting effects and trying to do something. In quite a few rural places many of the doctors and pharmacies that would prescribe them get shut down (often quite hard) not necessarily for lack of medical judgement but for some arbitrary amount they might have gone over or something. This may in turn mean both people with truly legit concerns now have to travel silly distances to get anything and others may be left in the lurch, drug dealers have no such qualms and "recreational" opiates are far far cheaper than proper prescription pills (if they can even get them all). There have also been cases of people being prosecuted because the amount they had, all prescribed, was also over so much.
Overdosing, which is incredibly easy for a lot of them, is really dangerous. Among the more fun ones are respiratory failure and all sorts of heart things.
For added fun there is a simple drug called naloxone, or Narcan if you prefer the brand name, which fairly spectacularly reverses effects* (go find and watch a video of it) and which can be quite restricted for whatever reason.
http://pdaps.org/datasets/laws-regulating-administration-of-naloxone-1501695139 is pretty good, and a nice study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2661437/ .
*sometimes up to and including blocking the effect of what the person took so they then want to go find some more or go into withdrawal.
Varies from state to state, possibly county to county/force to force and even officer to officer (possibly point in time if they are supposed to have an arrest quota). Many will not care if you are sitting there in your house with a joint, some will tell you to put it out when walking by on the street, and it may be a weapons drawn and hit the deck situation in other places. It can also be an aggravating factor if they want you for something else or fancy searching you/your car.