Criminalization and stigmatization cause more harm in the long-term than drugs do.

Are all drugs as innocous as cannabis or psilocybin? Gosh no.

Does criminalization and stigmization of drug use make the problem 10,000x worse? Very.

Imagine if the US followed Oregon's lead and decriminalized all personal use. Drug users can seek out help and get harm reduction (eg: needle exchanges, advice, etc) and get them participating in the medical system where we can help them out of addiction, no families will be destroyed because of a little weed (or heck, meth), we save a bunch of money on drug enforcement, we could close private prisons, etc.

I am not saying utopia, but maybe we should look at drug use as something besides a personal moral failing. No one wakes up and decides to be a drug addict... no one _wants_ to be an addict.

This idea that drug users are burn-outs who chose that life is absurd.

And drugs don't exist in a vacuum, you can't take the individual out of the equation and expect meaningful answers.