Matt Steinglass continues the pot legalization debate:
The main overall problem with the Dutch gedoogbeleid, or “toleration policy”, with regard to the drug war, is the problem of drug tourism. Because Dutch policies are out of step with those in Germany, Belgium, France and Britain, lots of drug tourists, mainly young, stupid and male, pour into Dutch cities to make trouble. The state balances its tolerant drug policies with public health programs for its population — safe drug use education, etc. — but those policies don’t catch the German 19-year-old boys on a weekend ecstasy and pot binge. If a single US state were to implement similar policies, especially a small state, it would encounter similar problems. If the US implemented them on national scale, it would encounter no such problems; the US is huge.