Addicts are already punished enough just by being addicts. I doubt any of them want to be addicts. Making it illegal, heaping on more punishment, does not help and just makes it worse.
Government policy on addictive drugs should be focused on treatment, not punishment.
I agree that the current approach works very poorly; that doesn't mean any other approach is better. Sometimes what works poorly is still the best we can do, such as our approach to pancreatic cancer (though I don't think that's the case here).
Government restricts access to many things for safety reasons, from unsafe cars to prescription drugs to dodgy financial deals to highly enriched uranium. It's a simple formula, almost a slogan, to say 'legalize it and consumers will decide for themselves' (and in fairness maybe the parent isn't being formulaic in this case). In some cases that's true; in some cases consumers simply don't have that capability. In our business, IT security is a good example; consumers have no way to make a judgment or even know that it's working. It's the same for prescription drugs: Am I better? Is that due to the drug? The placebo effect? Natural progress? Maybe I'd be even better without the drug.
But that's all theory; before we mess with people's lives, we need evidence.
By making drugs illegal you cut off reliable, safe, and inexpensive access.
I personally know two addicts who OD'd because they acquired a batch of heroin that was more potent than they realized. One had been in and out of jail due to drugs.
They'd likely be alive today if addiction was treated as a disease rather than a crime.
> Maybe I'd be even better without the drug.
They didn't want to be addicts.
The American experiment with Prohibition suggests otherwise.
It implies that people are not using because it is illegal. Is that true for you? It isn't true for me, nor anyone I know.
For example, I voted in favor of marijuana legalization in Washington State. It's now legal. I didn't smoke weed before legalization, nor after. I simply have no desire for it. I don't know anyone who took up weed because it is now legal.
I understand the claims, but without evidence they are only a couple claims among very many. Evidence is what separates science from all the other theories of the world.