an important distinction, too. I really do think that decriminalization is a logical path to legalization, but it offers many less benefits to society by direct comparison.

all the criminal infrastructure and the ills that go with it don't go away after decriminalization alone, but it does at least offer some protection to the end user.

ideally, it needs to eventually be properly legalized and regulated so it can be produced, transported and sold legally while (also ideally) being taxed along the way.

And it should also be noted that what the US is moving toward is legalization (eliminating some or all prohibitions on drugs and making them not contraband, though there may be restrictions as with other legal medical drugs or recreational substances), not decriminalization (eliminating criminal penalties for small-quantity possession while maintaining the general prohibition such that the drug is still contraband.) While decriminalization has happened somewhere, state-level legalization of either medical use (making it, from a state perspective, analogous to other legal medical drugs, except with an ad hoc regulatory regime because it is still federally prohibited which prevents it from working with existing protocols for medical drugs) or more generally (making it more like, e.g., alcohol, with the same caveat) and there are currently-active proposals at the federal level for both medical and general legalization.