I believe you're referring to Switzerland. It isn't legal, but addicts can get free heroin (or methadone) administered by doctors. It cuts the bottom out of the dealer's markets, prevents petty crime by desperate addicts, avoids OD deaths, and makes sure the government has tabs on how bad the problem is. In 20 years Zürich has gone from 'having a heroin problem' to just a few old-timers who occasionally relapse, with almost no new addicts.

No. Not even marijuana is legal in Sweden.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Sweden

"The drug policy of Sweden is based on zero tolerance focusing on prevention, treatment, and control, aiming to reduce both the supply of and demand for illegal drugs."

> I mean, legalize it all.

That's obviously difficult. The actual situation is even more difficult: you have to simultaneously deal with the supply and demand factors.

It's not enough just to legalize everything (which will never happen, 80-90% of the globe will never do such a thing under any circumstances, regardless of what the US does). If you do that, the demand will of course still be there. Someone has to wipe out the cartel production/supply by competing with it.

So the US has to go into the production business for cocaine, heroin, etc. It wouldn't be reliable to leave it to Mexico, it would be too easy for the cartels to hijack and control.

Any country that doesn't legalize globally - which will be most of them - will still remain a target for the cartels to sell into. Latin American cartel networks are effective enough and big enough now that they move product globally.

Legalize it all requires that a very large portion of all countries go in on that. It will never happen.

The US will fully legalize marijuana and it will hardly make a dent in taking down the cartels or reducing cartel violence in Latin America, which demonstrates their considerable staying power. There was widespread opinion that it would make a big difference, in reality it'll have hardly made any difference (Mexico is more violent now than it has ever been in its history).

> It's not enough just to legalize everything (which will never happen, 80-90% of the globe will never do such a thing under any circumstances, regardless of what the US does).

Cutting the US demand (and the prices the US will pay) out of the illegal business will make the cartels far less profitable, even if the rest of the world does nothing.

> So the US has to go into the production business for cocaine, heroin, etc

If it's legal in the US, US business will rush into that domain. Especially if it's not legal to produce in the rest of the world, so they only have domestic competition.

> The US will fully legalize marijuana and it will hardly make a dent in taking down the cartels or reducing cartel violence in Latin America, which demonstrates their considerable staying power. There was widespread opinion that it would make a big difference, in reality it'll have hardly made any difference (Mexico is more violent now than it has ever been in its history).

The US hasn't legalized marijuana at all. (Individual states have, the feds have just paused enforcement of laws on the books, with no guarantee that they won't retroactively resume them within the statutes of limitations. Everyone doing business in the field is in danger of not just garden-variety narcotics offenses but make-enough-money-and-its-life-in-prison kingpin laws. Which effects the willingness for mainstream businesses to get involved and means that the state-legal businesses are often operating at only a remove or two away from traditional organized crime. You can't judge anything about actual legalization effects on legal and illegal business networks from the current state of affairs.)

> So the US has to go into the production business for cocaine, heroin, etc.

Pharmaceutical companies already produce everything you could imagine and more. I can't stress enough how much of a non-issue this concern would be in practice. (Also we already produce an impressively wide range of opiates for medical use.)

> Any country that doesn't legalize globally - which will be most of them - will still remain a target for the cartels to sell into.

So you're saying we shouldn't try to move in the right direction because our actions alone wouldn't immediately and completely solve the problem? This is an incredibly defeatist point of view.

>Pharmaceutical companies already produce everything you could imagine and more.

Such as Cocaine: http://www.mallinckrodt.com/products/generics/compounding-po...

Methamphetamine: https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm

Ketamine: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr...

And obviously the dozens of opiates more potent than heroin.

Funny aside, the company that Mallinckrodt gets its coca from is the same company that Coca-Cola gets its de-coca'd leaves from.

If you legalize and tax production, you'll grow a booming local production market. Smugglers have trouble competing with legal enterprise. The endless argument is mostly one of "how many more addicts would you create and what is that harm" vs "how many people would enjoy better lives if they were not criminalized for taking drugs (and their suppliers were regulated and not criminalized)."

in fact, legalization of class A or B (schedule 1 and 2 in the USA) drugs would generally mean expulsion from the UN of that country for breach of the charter. that's why e.g. the Netherlands have only decriminalised certain drugs. technically they are still illegal. in fact, if Canada was a smaller, non Western/developed country, im sure they would not have legalised cannabis, and even so they definitely won't legalise wholedale trafficking etc. it seems the UN got a bit upset but couldn't do much? [0]

0. https://news.un.org/en/audio/2018/10/1023212

> in fact, legalization of class A or B (schedule 1 and 2 in the USA) drugs would generally mean expulsion from the UN of that country for breach of the charter

No, it wouldn't.

The UN Charter has nothing relevant.

There are various drug conventions, but IIRC, all of them have denunciation provisions, and in any case there is no basis for the claim that either violation or denunciation of those conventions would result in expulsion from the UN. Violation, rather than denunciation, might result in a suit and adverse ruling in the ICJ by another aggrieved nation. Or it might not.

You say that as if the reason the UN and the world have a mostly unified drug policy isn't because of US strong arming.

ok, these are all good points, perhaps i could have been clearer. how about this, which i think is a true statement based on my understanding; drugs (mostly cannabis) are usually only decriminalised, rather than legalised, due to treaty obligations within the un system. this makes canada (and uruguay) interesting cases, since both have actually legalised cannabis.

sure, there won't be a un police action against them, and today i learned that denunciation is an option in the relevant treaty, rather than expulsion. but, there is a good reason (treaty obligations) why countries won't just 'legalise all the things' and have traditionally followed softer approaches.

I think if the US left the treaty, everyone would breathe a sigh of relief and modify the treaty.

I don't know - both the UN and WHO are pushing for a more tolerant policy. At this point, it is merely focusing on decriminalizing possession and use, in no small part because of good results in some places. It isn't much of a jump to allow full legalisation in their charter.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/united-nations-wor...

Get real. The UN is never going to expel any member state regardless of which treaties they breach.

I think that depends on the circumstances. I saw quite a lot of "don't let the door hit you on the way out" sentiment over Brexit.

To be clear, you saw a lot of that regarding Brexit in the UN? If you meant from those in the EU, then that's a completely separate organization.

You're right, I posted while tired and blame that on a brain fart.

The UK wasn’t expelled, and the EU bent over backwards to try to keep the UK in

Very likely will not help except to the extent that it makes selling drugs unprofitable. Any profitable industry--agriculture, tourism, energy, etc.--falls victim to the same.