Decrinminalizing (Not Legalize) All Drugs (controlled substances)

After sitting through a Criminal Law class my professor had given us a little bit of insight on the U.S. Corrections System (He had worked as a parole officer and written several books on the U.S. Corrections system) about how much a inmate costs a year to house in a state prison for whatever his conviction may have been. The following argument is based on the information he had given us. At this point in time the national average cost to house a inmate in a state prison is roughly $35,000 per year. 3/4 of the population of these prisons are of inmates convicted of a drug charge or a lesser non violent crime, for example car theft. Obviously we are in the red as far as economy goes and we face a large deficit throughout many states. My idea to help this would be to do as follows: Now as stated before the price to keep one single prisoner behind bars for one year is roughly $35,000. Now calculate 2.1 million times roughly $35,000 and you get a number that could be used for something other than the luxuries of a criminal. Drugs whether being marijuana, crack cocaine, heroine, meth, etc should be not Legalized but Decriminalized. Yes I understand that every and all people in jail now for drug related crimes would be released into our streets. But by doing this you accomplish this. Drugs are easly obtainable and cheaply made or grown etc. Just like alcohol during the prohibition the price for drugs is expensive. If decriminalized it lowers the price of drugs so that the heroine and crack cocaine users no longer have to steal your car, rob your house, mug your neighbor etc. to get a fix. It will also get rid of racketeering and break down profits ten fold with the mob and other gangs due to the fact that most of there income is through drugs. And without the increased prices of drugs due to being illegal they will be nothing more than business men and women with a product that lost nearly all its street value. Besides the fact, if it took a bottle of smirnoff vodka to get me through my day everyday i will die...very quickly...if it take heroine to get someone through there day every day they will die far more faster. Good, they were no good to the community and is now a form of population control, only the strong survive. So far, with decriminalization drugs, you now have cheaper drugs, less crime, less violent and operational drug cartels and gangs. Along with those outcomes crime will drop if anything and there will be no increase in drug use, if there is once again pop control...we simply dont need them to put it bluntly... Finally with decriminalizing drugs you would save an astronomical amount of money that could be used for countless other things and govt programs. With the money saved why not buy the repeat car theif a $5000 car, hell your saving $30,000. Why not buy the heroine addict $2,000 worth of heroine and a $2,000 coffin...much cheaper than paying $35,000 a year for someone in prison for 10 years for a drug related crime. With all this i believe that the strong will survive and the weak perish. The country will save millions if not billions of dollars due to this and the crime rate will lower if anything at all. Please be nice and let me know what you think :) (Keep in mind that am I in no way a professional debater or lawyer but someone that would wish to discuss this topic with someone that will be able to give much logic on a opposite opinion of my own.)