Pleasant Politics

The problem I have with your logic is that it delves into the line of conspiracy.

Private prisons alone are a multi-billion a year industry, and as with any corporate community with vested interests, they lobby congress to sway them to their interests. If you consider that to be going too far into conspiracy, then I can only offer that this phenomena of a corporate plutocracy has been well studied by respected universities, and compiled into easily digestible books, examples such as:

Affluence and Influence, by Martin Gilens, professor of politics at Princeton University. Martin and a colleague, Benjamin Page, analyzed 1,779 policy outcomes over a period of more than 20 years. They concluded that “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

Who Rules America by G. Wlliam Domhoff, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at University of California, Santa Cruz. He explores the history of how a corporate plutocracy formed, how their social circles operate and reinforce their positions, and their financial incentives.

None of those people are on the fringe, they are operating purely on verified historical fact and solid scientific rigor.

if it were as bad as you say

There's more people in prisons doing so-cheap-it's-slavery labor now than there were actual slaves in the US before it was abolished.

317K people were arrested for Marijuana in the US in 2020, a low from 500k the previous year.

There are 1.2 Million people incarcerated in the US (40k of those for Marijuana alone), compared to 483K in all of the EU. This is despite the EU having more than double the US population.

they would be arresting people from jaywalking

Drug users were so heavily demonized over so many decades, that we don't really bat an eye if someone is imprisoned for drugs. Do you believe people would be passive if life sentences for jaywalking became a thing?

It’s also generally illegalized outside of the US except for a few specific tourism hotspots

Illegalized, but usually the penalty is only a small fine, not prison as a federal offense, and many of countries in the EU have decriminalized it for personal use, not just tourist hotspots.

Government are very aware of the effects of drugs and was even weaponized during the Opium Wars

my impression of it is that it’s not without risks

Marijuana is nowhere near as dangerous or addictive compared to any other commonly available recreational drug. Cigarettes, Opium, and alcohol, are far more addictive and damaging, all of which create a tremendous amount of societal costs, for families, medical facility overload, and societal.

I won't say people can't become dependent on weed, and kids should probably avoid it, but it inherently has no real withdrawal symptoms compared to any other substance, and is far easier to quit cold turkey than virtually any other drug with no physical harm.

The punishment for marijuana is completely disproportionate to the societal damage it is capable of causing, which in the worst case scenario, is minimal. To justify its criminalization by looking at the damages of opium use is bizarre when all of the above is taken into account. If we were to seriously consider that point of view deserve merit, then we must also seriously consider that unhealthy and addictive food should rightfully be criminalized as well. We have mountains of data and research showing how much societal harm they cause, and how addictive they can be, and in fact, are designed to be.