> Less criminalisation inevitably means less drug harm. Any other stance can only be made in bad faith.

That is in itself an extremely bad faith statement.

> Just look at relative harm numbers, the stats (especially at something like the EU level) are available publicly.

Yes, look at them. They do not support your statement because you are asserting that the corellation is basically linear, but I was talking about an (entirely hypothetical) scenario that is completely outside the data, namely full legalization.

No EU state has legalized heroin or cocaine. The poster boy for decriminalization is Portugal, but they haven't even legalized use, let alone production or distribution. They have merely turned use into an administrative offense rather than a criminal one and are providing a lot of harm-reduction services.

There is a huge difference between that and full legalization where big business spends billions on advertising to market addictive substances - which is the situation we have with alcohol that leads to a lot of harm.

At the end of the day, we have multiple points on a spectrum with related harm levels. If you can't look at that and see a reasonable approach and stance to take, then nothing can be said that will make you do so.

Also, we currently have a real life case study to learn from in Portugal though I haven't been staying up to date with the latest results on that approach with resulted in more decriminalization of drugs across the board.

Portugal has not, in fact, fully decriminalized any previously illegal drug. Not even cannabis.

Quoth wikipedia:

In 2001, Portugal became the first European country to abolish all criminal penalties for personal drug possession

Some people like to argue that "nobody punishes you for it" isn't the same as "it's okay", even though it's not clear what the difference between those is for an actual human being.

That nuance is appreciated. Removing government penalties seems like a "bright line" thing to prioritize, to me.

Also quoth wikipedia: "criminal penalties are still applied to drug growers, dealers and traffickers."

Which is what I meant with "not fully decriminalized".

I’d be very interested to see a report on how that’s going