Another way to approach this is to look at places where legalizing, or at least decriminalizing marijuana has already been tried.
The Netherlands, particularly certain areas of Amsterdam, stopped enforcing marijuana laws decades ago, and permits a select number of "coffee shops" that are licensed and taxed to sell the drug to patrons.
The hope was that marijuana use would ultimately go down once the "forbidden fruit" aspect discussed in the answer above was removed, and then law enforcement could focus on the harder narcotics. Recent studies suggest that if anything, marijuana use has increased slightly since decriminalization, and crime related to drugs has been more localized, but not reduced. Further, it has led to a large amount of "drug tourism" where people from nearby countries without legal drugs come to Amsterdam, buy it, and transport it home at the end of their vacation.
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