Be real interested in what research there is to back up that claim.
Add up drunk driving deaths, cirrhosis, early onset alcohol dementia, lung cancer, COPD, kidney disease, and coronary disease, our legal dope has quite a tally. This includes the five close family members I have seen check out from alcohol and tobacco induced.
If our current system were adjusted to make legal all the idiotic ways people poison themselves or otherwise ruin their one and only life, my relatives would still be dead, but these people in Houston would still be alive. So would their dog.
And, what you're presenting is a straw man. Alcohol is legal and, thus, used in far greater quantity than recreational drugs of any kind. If recreational drugs were legal, they'd be killing more.
But, why the hell do we need anymore legal ways to get high? How many more citizens need to die so losers have a "right" to get high? It's insane. It diminishes the quality of life for everyone.