Also, by keeping it illegal, we cannot regulate it. This gives the cartels the incentive to create drugs that are so addictive that a user is compelled to do literally anything to achieve that high, no matter the price. With legalization, drugs can be regulated to ensure a limit on the high and we can control the high the user gets.
I understand that it was no different with Prohibition. Prior to Prohibition, upwards of a third of adults were in a continual stupor, which was the reason to bring it on. During Prohibition, moonshine was often 190 to 200 proof. It was legalization and regulation of alcohol that eliminated most of the problems.
You're dreaming. Non-users will get the drugs and sell them to users.
Dream on.
And back before Prohibition, opioids were a frequent ingredient in “patent” medicine, and especially used by women. Mother’s little helper in those days. Freud spoke in favor of the pain killing effect of cocaine.
The fact is, many people are in pain, both physical and emotional. There is no such thing as a non addictive pain killer. The trick is to help people reduce and eliminate their physical and emotional pain. Nicotine addiction is very hard to overcome as many know. I went through a training program with Dr. Daniel Casriel (founder and clinical director of the Daytop Village, NY, program for addicts and alcoholics) who used many of the same approaches publicized by Arthur Janov in The Primal Scream. In the waiting area where new patients congregated the cigarette smoke was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Later in an advanced training group of professionals and paraprofessionals who had processed many of their own issues with Casriel, I noticed there was not a single smoker.