Actually you’re the one who doesn’t know what you’re talking about. Opium was PUSHED onto China, they were trying to get it out. Meanwhile it, and all the other drugs, were legal in most of the world without having issues.
The stupid mistake is adding a black market to the other problems of drug use. You have all the same number of addicts, higher prices, more crimes, and an ever increasing police force. At least with it legal all we get is the junkies. And the only way it gets anything like China is if a government (possibly even our own) decides it’s in their best interest to give us LOTS of drugs for really cheap. Which would be a problem even if it was illegal (as seen in your own link because during most of that time China was actually trying to PREVENT opium being imported into their country).
Yeah, I get that a lot from simpletons.
Opium was PUSHED onto China, they were trying to get it out.
And you naively think hard drugs wouldn't be PUSHED onto us if it were legal?
Meanwhile it, and all the other drugs, were legal in most of the world without having issues.
No, there were plenty of issues. American drug addiction started during the civil war when they found that opiates and cocaine made good painkillers. Towards the end of the 19th century, drugs were just getting started in this country, especially with the advent of "Patent" medicines which were mostly hard narcotics and alcohol. People started dying from this stuff in the last couple of decades of the 19th century.
Now you may argue that this stuff was known since colonial times, and this is true, but it was not available in sufficient quantities to establish a large contingent of addicts until the later part of the 19th century. Addiction was just starting to increase when the US Government took actions to stop it.
The stupid mistake is adding a black market to the other problems of drug use.
Better a black market than an open legal market for this stuff. It's poison and it leaves a path of death and destruction wherever it touches.
At least with it legal all we get is the junkies. And the only way it gets anything like China is if a government (possibly even our own) decides it’s in their best interest to give us LOTS of drugs for really cheap. Which would be a problem even if it was illegal (as seen in your own link because during most of that time China was actually trying to PREVENT opium being imported into their country).
I am not even going to address that comment. It is just nonsense.