I'd like to agree, but I'm afraid I can't. Notice that many years of widespread use of currently illegal drugs in the US has not translated into widespread willingness to say that the drugs should be legal.

This is a a bad example: drugs are a destructive, negative thing, and practical experience with them makes people wary. Freedom, on the other hand, it a good thing and experience with it will bear that out. Having said that, there is a lot of support for legal and non-violent ways to distribute drugs. I would be surprised if it doesn't happen in 20 or 30 years.

Nor has the experience of decades of black markets turned into widespread Russian willingness to allow a lot more freedom: what they call "profiteering" and punish heavily is mostly what we call "wholesaling" and regard as an essential part of mundane distribution.

I'll have to defer to you on this -- I don't know the ins and outs of commerce in Russia. But my impression, as an uninformed layman, was that the experience with illegal capitalist trading in the black market had preceeded (and softened them up for?) legal capitalist transactions above ground.