My take is simpler, but I don't think it's any more, or any less, applicable.
You know the spiel: If Drug X is legalized, its use will magically come to be considered "normal" and people who wouldn't otherwise use it will start using it. If that drug happens to be marijuana, its "normalized" use will become a "gateway" to use of other, still not "normalized," drugs.
That's all a bunch of horseshit, and the horseshit starts with the very concept of "normalization."
To "normalize" something is to make it "normal." There are several definitions of "normal," but I go with the one I suspect most people automatically think of from among the selections at Merriam-Webster: "[C]onforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern : characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine."
Throughout known human history (and that point keeps getting pushed further and further back by e.g. archeological discoveries), people have used drugs. They've used drugs to relieve pain, they've used drugs to alleviate the symptoms of illness, they've used drugs to alter their own moods and mental states, etc.
That's how it always has been. That's how it is now. Absent a number of genetic mutations that cause drugs to stop achieving those results, that's how it's always going to be. It's usual. It's typical. It's routine. It's normal.
If Drug X is legalized, might its use increase relative to its use when it was illegal? Some people who were afraid to act normally might decide to start acting normally. Others might reconsider their normal drug preferences and e.g. move some or all of their entirely normal consumption from entirely normal booze to entirely normal cannabis or entirely normal acetaminophen to entirely normal morphine or whatever.
The war on drugs, unfortunately, is entirely normal -- it's just another manifestation of the human desire to order other humans around. Just because something is normal (usual, typical, or routine), that doesn't mean it's good.
