> yeah, legalizing opium is an odd choice. I don't understand it. Its addictive

So are caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine (in increasing order of how addictive.)

> It would make more sense to significantly decriminalize it, but keep it illegal, so that addicts can get treatment without fear of legal repercussion

Legalizing it does that, too; “significant decriminalization” without legalization is mostly an incoherent approach that serves no policy end particularly well.

> I don't understand what would be gained by legalizing it wholesale though.

Greater harm reduction than mere decriminalization because of oversight and accountability for quality; greater diversion of funds out of organized crime, rogue states, and terrorist organizations and into the legal domestic economy. Greater tax revenues. Decreased demand for US foreign intervention, covert and military, to cut off the illegal supply at the source when, as consistently happens domestic law enforcement fails to adequately combat the illegal trade.

> legalizing opium is an odd choice

Only if the bill wasn't "inspired" by some group that wants to sell opium. For such a group, trying to piggyback opium on the current wave of marihuana legalization would be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

But it still would not make much sense because existing opiate sellers, both legal and illegal, seem to be on the winning side of existing regulation.

The ability to potentially obtain a product of better quality, and to not have to deal with such shady people to get their dose.

Opium is highly addictive regardless of who you get it from.

So is heroin. But the fact that heroin is illegal in the U.S. is what has lead to so many overdose deaths. Nobody really ever knows what they're taking or how much fentanyl is in it.

Much less lethal though, look at recent spike in US opioid deaths due to black market products of questionable content and quality.

Sure, that's not my point

It's still a problem though.

So let's make it easier for people to perpetuate their addiction?

No, we should be making it much harder for them to do so.

A higher quality and more consistent product means there's a larger window of time for getting them treatment. If the quality situation ends up like it is in the U.S. now, you end up with a much more lethal product and a huge rate of overdose deaths.

this is assuming an overdose death is worse societally than having said user alive, unemployable, and addicted to opium or an opium substitute for the rest of their lives. I don't mean this morally...life is precious and should be saved. But I don't know how many societies could deal with a massive addict class that only exists to siphon benefits and energy.

Well that's assuming that they'll just siphon benefits and energy. Most of the addicts I've known are high functioning and relatively productive -- they just spend a lot of money supporting their habit. I'd imagine this would be even easier post-legalization.

So do you disagree with the use of heroin-assisted treatment[1] or supervised injection sites[2]? Have you considered that many of the problems associated with addiction actually stem from the efforts of people like you to make it harder for users to get the drugs they need, problems like exorbitant prices and potentially lethal adulterants?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin-assisted_treatment

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervised_injection_site

Elimination of black markets, harm reduction through consistent unadulterated substances, and lessening of the marginalization of addicts aside, it's none of your business what other people do with their bodies.

Opium may be addictive, but given its low potential for overdose it is highly preferable for addicts to use opium as opposed to oxycodone, heroin, fentanyl, carfentanyl, etc.

Pure opium is fairly benign, as hard drugs go.

It's all the crap it gets cut with by shady dealers that kill people.

Heroine (~1%), morphine(~5-13%), and codeine(~5-13%) are the active constituents in opium, which is a plant material consisting of many other benign substances. These discussions need to include factoids like these in order to be productive.

This is incorrect. Opium does not contain any "Heroin" (Diacetylmorphine). The three major alkaloids contained I opium latex are Morphine, Codeine and Thebaine.

Except we can't. If the last 50 years has shown us anything it's that we're utterly incapable of keeping drugs away from drug users. All we are doing is locking people with substance abuse problems up.

We've proven over time that 'get people to stop doing drugs' isn't a viable end game. It's not going to happen.

The best we can do is harm reduction, at least in this case we can stop people getting fentanyl, thinking it's oxycodone or heroin, and OD-ing.