Singapore solved this problem, and we should probably follow their example
> Singapore's top diplomat in the UK, Michael Teo, defended Singapore's harsh drug laws by pointing to the country's lower rates for drug use.
"8.2% of the UK population are cannabis abusers; in Singapore, it is 0.005%. For ecstasy, the figures are 1.8% for the UK and 0.003% for Singapore; and for opiates—such as heroin, opium, and morphine - 0.9% for the UK and 0.005% for Singapore," claimed Teo. "We do not have traffickers pushing drugs openly in the streets, nor do we need to run needle exchange centers."
Portugal didn’t solve the drug problem. Portugal has stratospherically high rates of drug use before it’s change in policy. At one point fully 1% of the population was addicted to heroin. That has come down, but drug use rates are still much higher than in China, Japan, and Singapore.
In fact, heroin use was the only drug the use of which went down in Portugal after the decriminalization. Use of other drugs went up, especially MDMA. At the same time, heroin use also went down in other European countries in which no decriminalization happened. It blows my mind that some people believe that change in Portugal’s policies was some kind of a huge success.
If you find a country with fewer needles on the streets and fewer people using drugs, we are happy to listen to their policies and how they accomplished it
Alcohol consumption has purposes other than mere intoxication. Likewise I wouldn’t execute a pharmacists who sells opium for legitimate reasons.
But sure, if you have an alcohol executive cutting their wine with methanol, pushing it to middle school kids and breaking interstate laws shipping laws to evade enforcement, like you did in prohibition... screw him.
If alcohol was as illegal as the drugs are today, sure. Even during prohibition the actual laws against alcohol were much more lenient than today’s laws against opiates.
> Singapore's top diplomat in the UK, Michael Teo, defended Singapore's harsh drug laws by pointing to the country's lower rates for drug use.
"8.2% of the UK population are cannabis abusers; in Singapore, it is 0.005%. For ecstasy, the figures are 1.8% for the UK and 0.003% for Singapore; and for opiates—such as heroin, opium, and morphine - 0.9% for the UK and 0.005% for Singapore," claimed Teo. "We do not have traffickers pushing drugs openly in the streets, nor do we need to run needle exchange centers."
https://www.tripsavvy.com/drug-laws-in-singapore-1629780