A similar state of affairs is likely to occur with legalization of other drugs, though fortunately most of them are much less harmful than alcohol.
I am missing the argument here -- its better to legalize than not legalize, but you are against legalizing? To level set, I don't think many people believe legalizing will make everything rosy. I believe instead they think it will improve the situation, and optimistically free up resources used for criminalization that may be better used for treatment, i.e. instead of training someone to be a cop you can train them to be a nurse.
No.
Look a couple of posts up in the thread you're responding to and you'll see me say:
"I'm 110% for legalization, but we need to set realistic expectations."
and I was responding to someone who was saying that if we legalize there'd be no overdoses. That's just wishful thinking. We need to legalize but be realistic about our predictions about what legalization is going to look like. No overdoses is not achievable (see my other posts in this thread as to the reasons why). But overdoses will definitely be reduced.
This may not be a problem in urban America, but the world is slightly larger than that.
Try living in the Eastern bloc, you will find Russian moonshine is wildly popular and sometimes comes with methanol.
Same goes for China, India and many African countries — the profit motives are stronger where knowledge is more scarce.
IMHO, education is the key. With great power (access to drugs) comes great responsibility (you need to do the right thing). Nobody will mix things they know will get them killed. Nobody will overdose on purpose. Education and Personal Freedom.
Well, setting aside intentional suicides, this is true. However, that doesn't mean that they won't mix stuff they don't know will get them killed.
Case in point is alcohol and any of a whole bunch of other drugs, which kills people all the time. Alcohol's already legal, and making other drugs legal won't stop people from mixing their (now pure) drugs with alcohol.
Education will definitely help, and I'm all for it. It's probably the most powerful source of good apart from legalization itself. However, some people just won't care or won't listen or won't believe or will be peer pressured in to doing it by their friends, or will already be too smashed on alcohol or some other drug to make the best decision so will mix in unsafe combinations anyway.
"Education and Personal Freedom."
I'm all for both, but we need to be aware that there will still be both intentional and unintentional overdoses. They happen from both currently legal over-the-counter and prescription medications, after all. Legalized drugs will be no different.
I'm 110% for legalization, but we need to set realistic expectations.
Legalization will make drug use way, way, way safer and lots less people will die and have their lives ruined (both from safer drugs and because they're not getting arrested, separated from their families, imprisoned, or killed by the police, etc..).
But overdoses will still happen because some people will still:
1 - intentionally overdose to kill themselves
2 - mix drugs, which is usually way more dangerous than using a single drug, and (depending on the drugs) how they interact might not even be known, so no safe dosage can be ascertained even if both were perfectly legal.. incidentally, mixing any of a large variety of drugs with alcohol is one of the deadliest combinations
3 - while on drugs people tend not to make the most carefully considered decisions, including whether to take more
Of course, all of this is still possible and still done even when drugs are illegal, and making drugs legal will improve almost all of these outcomes (except intentional suicide), since at least the drugs in question will be of known purity and dosage.. but there will still be overdoses (just a lot less of them).