Not to mention the drastic increase in accurate market information. The amount of misinformation and lies (reefer madness) about drugs coming from well meaning (that might be generous) people and organizations about illegal drugs is staggering. Some people trust this and never try drugs, other people try drugs and realize they've been lied to, which leads to a lack of trust in the information presented about drugs. This is a bad thing because some drugs truly do have very bad downsides.

Sometimes I wish kids were forced to truly grok some of the basics of economic theory before getting to high school. I wonder how different the world would be if even a few percent more people didn't take some of the actions they do that are clearly counterproductive.

I think along the same lines as you, but I'm not so sure about users being able to successfully self-taper with legalization. Lots of people with oxycodone or similar perscriptions find it almost impossible to meaningfully self taper. Not to say that there aren't some people with that level of self control, but not all. I don't think it would be much different with heroin or meth.

It varies with the type of drug, definitely. Most people can’t just kick opiates once addicted; often they end up just abusing methadone instead of heroin or pills. But I think addicts don’t generally want to be addicts.

In this case, legalisation and regulation of a different drug—kratom—could help users self-rehabilitate. Kratom is to opiates much as e-cigs are to cigarettes—some of the effects, but far milder, more manageable, and easier to quit. The DEA announced their intent to schedule it, but (thankfully) has since backpedaled a bit due to public objection.

Yeah, Kratom definitely has a lot of potential to do a lot of good for opiate addicts. I disagree with the analogy to e-cigs though. With e-cigs you can put a much stronger concentration of nicotine in each hit depending on the liquid used. It's still exactly the same chemical, ie. nicotine, binding to the exact same receptors in the same way. With Kratom, you are binding to the same receptors as opiates, but it's a different chemical which binds/antagonizes the receptors differently than other opiates. It's this difference which makes tapering Kratom easier than other opiates. This difference does not apply to cigs and e-cigs.

Sorry, I was being unclear. I was speaking only in terms of addictive potential and difficulty of quitting. MAOIs in cigarettes make them more addictive than e-cigs (nicotine alone) as the different action of other opiates makes them more addictive than mitragynine.

I see. I wasn't aware of the MAOIs in tobacco. Though I wasn't able to find a good source on how much they might contribute to the addiction (lots of questions about it around the web though).

Do you happen to know of credible sources or studies which have looked at this?

Dunno about credible, but here’s one rat study with a lot of citations, and I think it’s where I first read about it: http://jneurosci.org/content/25/38/8593.full

I get the impression it varies with different drugs: with cigarettes the addiction is powerfully reinforced by associating taste/smell with the nicotine kick, and vaping can particularly help by letting you remove that factor.

(Couldn't say from my own experience, though, unless you count my addiction to chocolate.)

Yeah it's definitely not the same with different drugs. The urges triggered by smell of cigarette smoke, I personally feel is more a mental thing, ie. the power of suggestion. It's separate from the physical dependence.

Vaping may remove the smell triggers, but having smoked for a long time, and having vaped a fair amount as well, I suspect that while vaping may be much healthier, it could end up being more addictive due to the way it tends to be used along with differences in the way it's inhaled.

When light cigarettes were first introduced, they also thought they would be healthier, but many people actually tended to pull harder on a light cigarette than the regular cigarettes, resulting in smoke being pulled more deeply into the lungs actually doing more damage.

why not?

diluting drugs is not hard. many dealers dilute the drugs for you!