Like walking into a supermarket easy.
Of course progressives have been begging for that to happen with mental health in the USA for decades, so all this is a fantasy to try to help people in society.
One unpredicted side effect of making it a health issue instead of a criminal issue is that it's no longer so cool to young kids. Breaking the law is a bit of a rebellious thrill. Getting an addiction like Uncle Bob and having to visit the doctor a lot, not so cool.
This is not shown. Many many people try drugs like speed, marijuana, cocaine and do not become addicted, many only do them a handful of times.
Absolutist policies are the ones that encourage draconian laws and responses because by the very nature of your statement, the first time is the worst time.
How about a recreational drug driver's license? It is how we respond to a situation that matters, not getting into the situation in the first place, esp when that situation is so easy to get into.
Switzerland hugely reduced an endemic heroin problem in part by making it a health issue instead of a criminal issue.
And Portugal has shown a lot of success in decriminalization of most drugs.
Illegal drugs are perhaps the 2nd largest business globally, after petroleum. Prohibition is an abject failure at "not starting in the first place".
If prohibition didn't do anything then we should surely drop it. And then?
But, your comment seems to indicate you are more interested in legal ways you can use them than recognizing the lives that have been damaged.
Pumping money into education about the pros and cons of recreational drug use would likely do a lot to reduce abuse and addiction. However only talking about the harms was already tried and was a failure. Most kids will at least try alcohol or marijuana or vaping nicotine and if you've already lied by omission about the pros they won't trust you anymore. But if you can manage to educate in an unbiased and scientific way that would likely lead to fewer lives damaged. Worth a try at least.
It's a fantasy because it has no chance of working even before you consider the enormous amount of resources it would require.
I strongly suspect the same about just letting people do copious amounts of legal drugs and then trying to fix addictions they develop.
Stepping in after the damage is done is usually both much more expensive and way less effective. Ounce of prevention and all that.