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Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

From a harm reduction standpoint, this is wrong. I want heroin users to get pure, uncut heroin -- just as I never worry that a bottle of whiskey is going to be cut with fentanyl. Legalize it and regulate it, and price out the black market or it will have all the incentive to undermine the possible good.

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I used to be for complete legalization for the reasons discussed here, but now i struggle with that because of how much destruction there is to people from meth and opioids. If those were legally available in smaller "safe" doses maybe it would be better. But this is just tough to contemplate.

How do meth/opioids change the equation? They're not (for the most part) legal.

Alcohol causes tremendous destruction, too, but I thought there was general agreement that national prohibition was worse.

They change the equation when someone is advocating for “full legalization” with (sometimes) “no government regulation”. The argument is (rightly or wrongly) that certain drugs are actually so harmful that they should be kept out of the public.

Yes, that's what I was thinking. They are so destructive and addictive that people can't stop taking them. I worry that if they were legal and cheap people would get hooked on them and cause a lot of devastation ton themselves and their families. Of course there are people today who can't get methadone to treat their heroin addictions, because of legality concerns where it's not available.

I agree that legalization alone cannot solve the problems. A lot of the harm is caused by current approaches, including policing itself. A lot of the motivation to use is due to poverty, and a ton of users are self-medicating for mental health issues. Policing, mental health care and poverty all need to be addressed in order for these problems to go away. Harm reduction practices (like safe injection sites, availability of counseling and addition services) in conjunction with legalization are components of a sane drug policy.

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