Have you an idea of the influence that these gangs can have? Back in the prime, the Italian Mafia had complete control over whole cities, businesses, and even the police force.
Yes, I know how powerful they were/are. But what created Al Capone and the Italian Mafia in the United States? Alcohol Prohibition! What created the Crips and the Bloods? Drug prohibition! If modern gangs have as much power as you say they do, why is drug abstinence still taught in schools?
The government doesn't run the major pharmaceutical companies, they do quality checks, but the market does a lot too. If everyone knew that Tylenol gives you cancer many people would stop buying it, the market also competes over what drugs are better, Viagra or Cialis? lol.
Besides, if they were legal, it would be the weakest drug out there. The drug dealers would still profit because they can sell the more potent product because they don't care if you live or die.
Thats an interesting idea, however, with free-market competition, 1) not that many people want to die and wouldn't purchase from the drug dealers, 2) people wouldn't want the trouble of breaking the law, 3) losing customers to death, certainly isn't very profitable when your market has bee restricted, 4) Cannabis isn't even that strong in comparison to other things.
The FDA can't just sit and examine drugs all day. Remember that money you saved from the cutting back of catching drug dealers? Well now you just invested 100% or more of that savings into the FDA to hire new people, make new plants, new buildings, and all the other things they need.
The FDA wouldn't need to do nearly as rigorous testing as you suggest, they only need to test a very small sample and as with food, only need to get tougher when there is a problem, which could be swiftly dealt with.
Every new president changes a few things from the previous president since most of the time we switch from Democrat to Republican every other election. But not everything gets changed. People have their own interests and change the things they say they will change when they run.
In recent history it seems as though every time a new president is elected they have been completely wiping the slate clean and putting forth programs that only follow their parties agenda, they also don't always do whats best for the people, they prefer to get corporate handouts. Also note, that in their own interest they often contradict themselves and do things that go against what they said they would do, like Bush Sr. raising taxes, when he said he would lower them.
You think the Libertarians wont change anything? You think they are made of out gold and are perfect? That is absolutely absurd and I think you need to reevaluate your train of thought.
No, Libertarians would change things, but not in the petty revenge game of the two larger parties. I don't think Libertarians are made of gold, they are just the lesser evil, their presidential candidate Bob Barr is, in my opinion, a scumbag who doesn't truly stand for the party's ideals.
