"Defund the police" and drug policy

I realize that the conversation today is around police violence against unarmed citizens, mostly African-American. It's been going on a long time and has complex causes, but one long-time reality for policing in communities large and small is drug-related violence. It is the major reason St. Louis city always pops up at the top of the list of violent places to live. 
How much of the pressure driving violent escalation in police encounters has been driven by gangs and drug-associated activity? In the funding and behavior of American police, drug policy is treated as a fixed cost. Is it? 
It seems to me that one way to "defund the police" is to decriminalize marijuana and opioid use. In the case of marijuana, if marijuana use and sales were legal in all 50 states, illegal production and sales would be reduced to the status of moonshine, which isn't a big industry or source of street crime. As for opioids, what are other countries doing to decriminalize narcotics and remove the financial incentives for gangs to market drugs and engage in the associated violence and homicide, which sap police resources and drive militarization of the police?

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