I assume you mean "rational, if your goal is to decrease drug use."
If that is the case, one must also consider all of the costs involved in making the drugs illegal, from paying people to enforce their illegality (DEA, border agents, customs inspections), increased burdens on the legal system, and the funding more prisons, the increase in thefts committed by addicts due to the rise in prices, increased burden on medical services (impure drugs are more hazardous to health)...
If your goal is "decrease drug use at all costs," then I question the rationality of the goal.
And, clearly, that goal is so vague as to be meaningless. How are "drugs" being defined? How are you deciding which substances should have their usage reduced and which shouldn't?
Of course. The list of scheduled substances is arbitrary, and must be constantly expanded as new neuroreceptor ligands are invented.
When I consider subparagraph A of the Federal Analog Act, I sometimes wonder if what is actually desired by drug-control advocates is to make certain states of mind illegal. That there could be legislation defining legal and illegal patterns of brain activity is quite a trip in itself. I thought cyberpunk was dead.
If that is the case, one must also consider all of the costs involved in making the drugs illegal, from paying people to enforce their illegality (DEA, border agents, customs inspections), increased burdens on the legal system, and the funding more prisons, the increase in thefts committed by addicts due to the rise in prices, increased burden on medical services (impure drugs are more hazardous to health)...
If your goal is "decrease drug use at all costs," then I question the rationality of the goal.