>Antibiotics would be far worse to deregulate than even the hardest recreational drugs, because widespread flawed use would harm other people at scale by promoting drug resistent strains.

That particular cat is well out of the bag as, according to the WHO[0], full 1/3 of antibiotics users obtained their last doses without a prescription. In fact, many countries (unlike the US) don't require prescriptions for antibiotics.

Which really sucks, as antibiotic resistance will (barring some serious scientific breakthrough(s)) likely be a huge problem over the next century or so.

I don't have a good answer WRT that, but agree with much of what you wrote.

[0] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/21-11-2022-1-in-3-use-a...