Thanks for this, this narrative is being repeated a lot and should be challenged more: "The WAR on drugs failed so therefore we must totally 180 on everything."

Obviously being very hard on drug dealers didn't eliminate drug usage, however we are not comparing it to the counterfactual of different drug strategies. Maybe the war on drugs did save people's life and prevented a large amount of drug usage.

OR "disproportionately punishing people of color" Are they also disproportionately affected by overdoses or as victims?