Greentext

You’ve made some good points here, but I do think you’re underestimating people.

You can executed in the USA for murder yet people still do it. You can get a longer sentence for your third felony, people still commit them.

If there is a market for something, someone will fill that void. Regardless of the consequences.

What we need to fix is society. Why do people do drugs. A massive factor is to escape reality, or no prospects. This can be seen as drug addiction and abuse is by far a larger problem in poorer areas than affluent ones. So if we build a society where everybody has the bare minimum and maybe some prospects we will see a lot less drug use.

As with everything this doesn’t mean there won’t still be people that will so drugs no matter what and that’s fine. Those are the minority and our aim is for maximum improvements to society.

If drugs are legalised to buy from stores like they do with weed, and it is priced competitively then there wouldn’t be much of a black market as they won’t be able to compete, this is why I believe these should be run my governments and not greedy companies as well the price will rise and street buying will be cheaper. The profits can be used to fund other programs.

What is interesting is wondering what the cartels would move to to keep their profits the same. Would they move to scams, kidnapping and such. Would they go legit and supply legal cocaine and stuff.

If prisons would work, the US would be drug-free by now.

Heroin also isn't the same as the media likes to portray it. You don't magically turn into a crazed addict who'd sell their own grandmother for a hit as soon as you look at some. That's the same crap that used to be said about weed. Plenty of people live totally productive lives and use heroin regularly.

Prohibition still doesn't work.

Heroin withdrawal is shit, but compared to alcohol or benzos it's at least not deadly. Also opiates are not hard on the body.

The problem with opiates is mostly getting clean ones - and the money for it.

In Switzerland they have a program, where they hand clean heroin to addicts and with a safe clean supply they can work, get a grip on their life again, and they start to reduce the dosage themselves after some time.

The social stigma and the idea to punish someone out of addiction is obviously bullshit.
People usually self medicate because of problems. So solving those problems is the right approach and not just taking away the crutch.

Also the state is losing quite some money with the prohibition - on multiple fronts

But we also don't know what was sold, so we may guess from the statistics of trafficking that it was stimulators or weed: