We can keep them illegal to produce and distribute, and have high penalties for those people, but make posession a misdemeanor, not a felony.
But this misses one of the bigger problems with the drug trade, the violence! We need to remove the profit in the drug trade by making the drugs legal so the druglords and gangs will lose their source of revenue. The reduction in price might also decrease property theft by individuals trying to buy high priced illegal drugs, maybe. We then also need to strongly discourage drug abuse (not use). I personally don't do any drugs harder than alcohol and caffiene, and not because of the legality of the hard stuff. I just don't like the out of control feeling some drugs give you.
I just don't see where making crack cocaine and heroin free and available to all is going to make crack and heroin addicts want to do anything other than get and stay high 24 hours a day.
Maybe I'm a bit callous, but I'm more concerned about the cost to me in dollars and increased societal violence due to the drug trade being illegal then the well being of people who will be addicts whether or not drugs are legal. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for trying to help them, but more concerned about helping myself and other non-drug addicts first. Have you ever been in a major inner city and seen what the violence of the drug trade does to the neighborhood? It's appalling, much more so than the plight of a drug addict!