People seem to forget how devastating drugs are to communities. We see it right now with meth and poor whites. It was (is?) true about African Americans and crack cocaine. There is no “legalize it” solution with these drugs. If you want to rehab low level offenders, fine. But high level offenders, the people running the operations, deserve their sentences.

I think you're missing the fact that illegalization is pushing these substances and their users into the black market, deep in the margins of society, and essentially leaving the rest of us powerless. If we were to own up and legalize it, we would be in a better position to treat it and to apply preventive measures. Plus we wouldn't be financing the underworld. As far as I can tell, facing the hard issues, like working with the most disadvantaged people, is the only thing that makes a difference, while illegalization is about rejecting them.

> I think you're missing the fact that illegalization is pushing these substances and their users into the black market

These laws generally come from the local community, not the token "evil" <insert-color-of-choice> man in a foreign country...

That's comically untrue. The drug war is a policy coined and handed down by the Nixon and subsequent White House administrations on the rest of the West, and in the US it does have strong racist undertones (see minimum sentences for crack cocaine compared to powdered cocaine).

Not even sure what you mean by laws coming from local communities. To someone involved in the drug industry illegalization is a conundrum. On the one hand, you might get punished. On the other hand, you're incentivized to do it, because you'll make a lot of money filling the supply vacuum left by the formal economy. Add bad socioeconomic conditions into the mix and poverty becomes much scarier than criminal prosecution.

> There is no “legalize it” solution with these drugs

That's why keeping in mind the difference between legalization and decriminalization is important.

You still need criminalization as a “stick” to either get people into rehab or not take these drugs at all.

Criminalization doesn't work. We have known this for decades. Destroying people's lives perpetuates the problem. Treat drug addiction as a public health issue and it needs to go hand-in-hand with poverty reduction.

Is there a drug that could be legalized and/or prescribed in a safe setting that would be less harmful than these?

Or, what is the social need that the drug pretends to fill, and can that need be met in a better way before addictions get out of hand?

Is there evidence people do drugs to fill a social need?