I'm not worried about people overdosing as much as I am about the harms they cause innocent people. Even if drugs like heroin were cheap, addicts would still steal to get it because they wouldn't be able to hold down jobs. They'd steal and they'd cause us a lot of other problems. Right now according to government statistics only something like one third of one percent of Americans use heroin. If legal the vast majority of Americans would be smart enough to leave it alone. But with low prices and easy availability a few more would try it and become addicted. It wouldn't take that many new users to double or triple or quadruple the number of heroin addicts we have today. The same goes for cocaine and meth.
Marijuana is already cheap and we couldn't make it much more available than it is already. Many millions of Americans use it every once in a while at least. More than 100 million Americans, more than half of all adults under 60 have already tried it. Almost everyone who wants to use it is already using it. That and of course marijuana users aren't much of a threat to us for the most part compared to people who use these other drugs. Use probably wouldn't go up that much and if it did go up more than I think it will it still wouldn't be that big of a deal.
If it was pot or nothing, I’m there with you legalize MJ, let the munchies begin!
I think the social ills associated with alcohol abuse far outweigh anything we would see with full decriminalization of all recreational drugs. I think we can agree the current WOD ain’t getting it done.