> While criminalising hard drugs is not ideal, legalising them and thereby making them more easily available will have a devastating impact and destroy too many lifes.

The problem is with demand creation driven by the process, not with the supply part of it.

The whole opioid epidemic is a classic example of accidental demand creation for the drugs and trying to fix it in steps by crushing the supply. But the actual medical use prevents the supply from being completely locked down.

In the US, I'm waiting to see what the Oregon experiment looks like - where they're trying to tackle the existing demand instead of worrying about demand growth (i.e help existing addicts, instead just of preventing new addicts).