That can work for drugs with low abuse potentials, like psychedelics. But why do you think drugs like heroin will benefit the society or the people who are taking them?
The result of this is all drug dealers going bust, and no drug dealers - no one to market the drug, so no new users. All addicts in Switzerland are now old people, and as they die of related diseases and old age the Swiss are having hard time keeping the clinics open because there are not enough takers for free heroin.
I think all opiates can and should be taken care of this way. Not sure about stimulants though - one doesn't just lie down on a clinic bed after a dose of meth or crack. Maybe if regular coke is legalized people will give up meth and crack?
I don't know about heroin, but there are something like 3/4 Swiss cities in the top 20 for cocaine consumption based waste water sampling.
Why do you think the world will flock to drugs if they were simply made legal?
Drug addicts (people who need to get high) will find an alternate high if they can't get illegal drugs.
How many adults do you know that have never done, or tried, heroin would suddenly do so if was legal? I think the amount of people that would try heroin because it became legal would be staggering low. I don't think there are many people out there going "Man, if heroin was just legal then I would totally try it!". People that want to do heroin are already doing so, it being illegal isn't stopping anyone.
"Heroin" has a bad name, so your legalized version would have some innocuous made-up marketing name, backed by tens of millions of dollars of advertising and it would sell like hotcakes.
How is that a counter argument? This is a breakdown/fault of the medical community and has no relation to making drugs legal. To be clear, I am arguing that all drugs should be legal for recreational use (not require a prescription).
No question, doctors need to vet information on drugs better (they should not be taking literature/studies that come from the drug manufacturers as a reputable sources of truth). No question doctors should be extremely hesitant prescribing any opioid at all. No doubt that a lot of the current opioid epidemic stems from doctors (either unwittingly or not) prescribing things that they shouldn't be. Those are all medical industry issues that need to be solved (regardless if things like heroin are legal).
I don't suppose, and don't recommend, doing a self diagnosis and getting whatever drugs you feel will help. The medical community is supposed to be the experts on that subject matter.
That said, people need to be free to determine their own risk tolerance level regarding what to put in, or use on their bodies.
Me personally? I am not going to stop going to the doctors to get medicines when I am sick, even if I could buy any and all drugs over-the-counter. Also I am sure prescriptions aren't going away even if all drugs could be bought over the counter, there is no way insurance would pay for drugs that weren't prescribed by a medical professional.
If you have regulations on drugs, then you have all the problems, to some extent, that people attribute to their illegality.
I am afraid of opioids, and I don't trust even doctors, so I never took the ones I was offered and didn't get addicted. But there must be millions of people who wouldn't trust a heroin dealer and would trust their doctor, so legality makes a big difference.
Do you see doctors promoting cigarettes? Alcohol?
I would say that your reasoning why you aren't doing CBD is highly rational. Do you really think that even if you wanted to try heroin and if you did it, it would automatically addict you? Like you're instantly gone in to the abyss?
People try heroin and nothing happens to them. Some even hate the experience. People use heroin for prolonged periods and then simply stop (non unusual in the late teens, with some kind of a trigger in the mid 20).
If there was not so much stigma involved and so much risk taking the stuff, we might see people coming out of this juvenile experimenting phase in a much much better state.
Also, do you really think that people that lifelong addicts, don't have some kind of deeper psychological reasons to go down that path?
I have no idea. Lots of people experiment with things and it's no big deal and they insist that must be a universal experience. There's a selection effect. If you try something at 20 and don't survive, you're not around at 40 or 80 to tell people it's no big deal.
When I was young, I enjoyed alcohol a lot, but didn't really struggle giving it up when I had to. Nor did I ever drink until blackout or vomiting, which you know, whether or not it's pathological/alcoholism, is common. I am certain that the level of compulsion is very different for some people.
I have a sibling, who I believe smoked cigarettes off and on but it never became a permanent habit. But a lot of people find them extremely addictive. I never smoked my first one, just because there was never an anticipated reward that seemed worth it. I might have been wrong, or right. Some people seem to get substantial cognitive benefits from nicotine.
Occasionally having a negative reaction to a prescription drug makes me wary of recreational or unregulated stuff, too. Seeing homeopathic stuff in the drug store makes me fearful that a CBD product might be fake too. So when I had wisdom teeth pulled and I was given a bottle of big pink pills (I think it must have been oxycodone/paracetamol based on a quick google) I didn't use a single one.
I'm certainly not saying opiate addiction is a neutral/good thing, but I don't think it would cause the societal harm that we see today with them being tightly regulated.
Potential case in point: illegal methamphetamine usage/addiction is a huge issue today in the US. I qualify that as "illegal", because meth is available by prescription under the trade name Desoxyn. Many drugs with similar effects are likewise available and much more commonly prescribed - but I'm not aware of anyone calling for them to be banned. If anything, I suspect in that case the overall societal impact is positive: I know I would be much less effective as a developer if I were to lose access to ADHD medication.
Meaning doctors where more likely to prescribe them, that whole episode was one of multiple fuck ups at every level backed by some unscrupulous fuckers.
The risk of legalization isn't so much ease of access as it is the normalization of drug abuse. We have shown with cigarette usage that education, propaganda and marketing laws can de-normalize drug use.
If anything, by making high risk drugs safely available through official venues, you can provide social services better access to those who need help.
I would say that you would likely see an initial increase in users but that a well run program would lead to both a overall decrease in users and more importantly a reduction of average harm per user.
Along with wondering if "legalization leads to increased rate of usage" holds true, I also wonder if the following is true:
> legalizing drugs also means easier access
Criminality is a "barrier to entry", surely, but I'm not at all sure that ease of access changes because of it. In Arkansas, where I live, cannabis is illegal. Even though I don't consume it (the risk isn't worth the benefit to me), I'm extremely confident I could make a couple of phone calls and have some delivered to me if I wanted to. That's really no different from my experience in the LA area.
In fact, it might actually be more difficult to obtain it in LA through legal means. Generally you have to seek out a dispensary (physically, or via phone/app) and provide identification. I wouldn't need ID to get it illegally in Arkansas. If an ID requirement has a negative participation impact on other things (like voting) then I would expect that to hold true for this as well.
Edit: The answer I guess is that those who have supported the war on drugs had other goals than "reducing the number of addicts". If you look at the history of how the war on drugs has been used by western intelligence agencies to grow their surveillance powers and finance and the fight against left-wing/communist organizations, the real reasons become more clear.