You're conflating multiple issues. Banning drugs doesn't stop their usage, nor does legalizing them, so the negative health effects of drugs are irrelevant. Funding criminals is only a problem because they are illegal. Addicts stealing is less of an issue and getting them help is easier in a system where users aren't criminals.

“Addicts stealing is less of an issue and getting them help is easier in a system where users aren't criminals.”

I don’t think this is necessarily true, and especially not if one area decriminalizes drug possession while another nearby does not. At least that’s been my anecdotal experience in Oregon. Theft of all kinds is through the roof right now. Of course, it’s impossible to disentangle the current situation from the effects of COVID-19, but I see a lot fewer smashed shop windows in Vancouver Washington than I do in Portland.

Drug addiction is a health issue. I have a close family member who was a fairly typical junkie now he is given a nice opiate substitute by state health system and he's a productive member of society.

Most of the harm associated with drug addiction comes from societal demonizing of the addicted.

Rabies is also a health issue, yet that doesn't mean we let rabid people out on the streets to terrorize others. The government is also responsible for the reasonable safety of the public, and psychotic people (regardless of the cause) shouldn't be given free passes to be out in public.

the opiod substitute given to this person's relative made him no longer psychotic

I was responding to the claim that most of the societal harm comes from demonization. No it does not. It comes from the behavior of the addicts.

the behaviour of the addicts is (largely) due to the addiction, therefore anything which impedes the addict from getting treatment (such as demonization) is the main driver of the societal harm which arises due to addiction :)

I say largely because there ARE people who simply will refuse treatment due to other personality issues, or are generally anti-social otherwise.

Agree with most of your comment, but I think "meth mouth" is pretty much debunked. It's the lifestyle of a meth addict that rots your teeth not the meth itself, nothing in your link claims it rots your teeth "no matter how much you brush them".

Should we put people in jail for obesity, smoking addiction or drinking addiction?

The societal costs of these diseases is bigger than any of the illegal drugs.

Handling of ill people should be the job of the health care system, not punitive system.

The logic is that these hard drugs are so addictive that their users cannot stop themselves from committing crimes to acquire more of the hard drugs. Fat-rich food, cigarettes, and alcohol are several orders of magnitude less addictive than the hard drugs we're talking about. I think you're making a false equivalence here.

They can stop themselves, but they need help with quitting addiction, not punishment for their illness.

Also, alcohol is one of the worst drugs, but it is legal.

> In the early 2000s, the monetary cost of alcohol-related crime in the United States alone has been estimated at over $205 billion, more than twice the economic cost of all other drug-related crimes.

> Alcohol is implicated in one quarter of all homicides globally.

> A report released in 2001 showed that 80% of violent crime committed by young people in Estonia has been linked to alcohol abuse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol-related_crime

https://web.archive.org/web/20140504141105/http://www.who.in...

Hm, orders of magnitude less addictive sure, but still extremely difficult for people to stop (especially long-term), and very damaging to their own life and taxing on health systems.

Nobody is arguing that there aren't cases where drugs have negative effects. What's argued it whether banning or allowing them has more negative effects.