In this case, any sufficiently strong opiate would do. However this thing is probably cheapest and easiest to get.
There is absolutely no valid reason we can't treat people with suboxone, which will allow them to maintain their addiction without getting high. However it needs a prescription and doctors usually won't just prescribe it to addicts, especially for extended time periods.
This could all be 'fixed' if people didn't have a subconscious need to make people 'pay' for doing things they feel are wrong.
A good example of this is when I got a complete workup done by a liver specialist, having been a very hard drinker earlier in life. Upon telling a close family member that everything came up fine and there were no lasting effects they commented 'that shouldn't be right' as if I had cheated society somehow by not having health consequences for being an alcoholic.
That's not my interpretation of it, which is that "that shouldn't be right" refers to an unexpected outcome given the assumptions, rather than some sort of sense of justice being violated.
You're absolutely 100% right about this. This should be the first part of any treatment, to make it easier to separate the druggie from the drug camp and then come off, if possible, at a reasonable time as decided on by them and their team. This is one of the cores of the Portuguese system, to use some drugs to wean people off the dangerous ones.
> This could all be 'fixed' if people didn't have a subconscious need to make people 'pay' for doing things they feel are wrong.
I know some people like this, but I see more people saying this in that we shouldn't forgive the violent and non-drug related crimes people committed while resisting being removed from the streets. They don't want them not treated, but they want them jailed instead of released once they're clean. It's hard to argue - I've personally helped two old female shopkeepers chase thieves out of their store. Threatening and obviously disrespectful and non-needs related thieves too, not someone simply trying to take a bottle of water and food.
And I doubt it would be easier to get either since they're unlikely to hand out an unlimited quantity to anyone who pays for it even if it were legal.
2. I think some drugs would become cheaper, and other drugs would become more expensive. Drugs with limited supply would become cheaper as more production/supply chains open up. Think cocaine, heroin, and some pharmaceuticals without large overseas labs. There are inefficiencies in the illegal drug trade that legal trade could smooth over as well: better payment methods, more open price negotiations, legal settlement for disputes, reduced employee churn from violence/arrest, reduced bribes/corruption related charges.
3. Regardless of the price of drugs, the overall price would be smaller, as illegal drug use has huge externalized costs. Everything from corrupt governments to increased health care utilization to wasted law enforcement resources to destroyed human capital.
4. The existence of an available quality tested market would force the black market to compete more on quality.
Tranq is cheaper because it is available for animals, and not 'seizing and destroying something while putting the people who possess it in prison' is a great market force for lowering prices.
Ergo, don't criminalize heroin and tranq stops appearing in it.
We already see this with alcohol. Most liquor is tarted-up industrial ethanol, delivered by train tankers to the bottling plants, with some marketing and branding wrapped around it. Industrial ethanol is very inexpensive to produce, around $1/liter; the price of consumption alcohol is downstream of excise taxes and branding.
Cost is not a relevant factor. We can produce all of these chemicals for so little that it is a rounding error. This is a matter of policy.
Consider the principles from another perspective. The leading causes of death in the US are diabetes, heart disease and obesity related conditions. Should we prohibit fast-food franchises, TV dinners and sedentary lifestyles?
As you said, "Do you want to live in an obese society?"
Logically, opposing prohibition isn't the same as endorsing obesity or drug abuse. There is an important distinction here.
There is a direct social cost in terms of health care, law enforcement, crimes committed to obtain drugs, fallout from broken families resulting in further dysfunction and more.
Then there is also the unseen cost of lost productivity. If users, deceased users, imprisoned users, distributors, deceased distributors, imprisoned distributors, and law enforcement personnel were not engaged in these activities, their efforts could be focused on more productive areas of the economy. We all pay for this policy socially and economically.
Alcohol is everywhere. Alcohol consumption correlates heavily, like crazy heavily, with assaults, rape, murder, domestic violence, accidents, and serious or fatal car crashes.
Weed is now legal or legal-ish in many places, essentially all of the big population centers in N. America. Edibles and vapes mean you don't even have to smell it.
And let's not forget all of those articles about SV wunderkunds "micro-dosing".
The addicts that the OP was discussing have serious withdrawal issues and are, compared to things like booze or marijuana, trivial in terms of overall population.