I am baffled by why anyone would support decriminalization rather than legalization and regulation. If you really think about it, decriminalization is a lot more radical of a move than simply legalizing it.

Legalize it. Regulate it. Tax it.

Under decriminalization, it would STILL be easier for a 14 year old kid to get pot then to get beer. Why? 'cause there ain't no black market with a guy selling six packs to any kid that comes along. Hell, depending on where you live it's easier for a kid to buy Marijuana than it is for them to buy Tobacco - Why? Because we have an effectively regulated market for both Tobacco and Alcohol - but we abdicate any responsibility to regulate Marijuana, leaving it as a wild west anything goes market.

Currently (admittedly due in large part to black market prices) Marijuana is the largest cash crop in the United States. Legalization would legitimize this industry and allow the profits to be taxed the same as every other industry.

Decriminalization would lower enforcement costs, true. Decriminalization would end this silly system in which 700,000+/- people are arrested each year mostly for simple possession with the harm inflicted on them by the legal system greatly disproportionate to the imagined harm of their 'crime'. True.

But it stops so far short of actually solving the real problems of prohibition.

Sure, we need to eliminate the draconian legal penalties for Marijuana - but why the hell would we stop there? Any responsible adult should be able to walk into a licensed store and legally purchase herb - without chancing being ripped off, without chancing buying laced weed, actually knowing that the strain they are buying is the strain advertised. Oh well, just my $0.02