Comment by talideon
2 days ago
When doing the right thing regarding things like addiction are tried in the US, there seems to be a habit of learning the wrong lesson. Attempts to apply the successful Portuguese model have failed because decriminalisation by itself is just an enabler of what _really_ helps, which is all the follow-up support.
And don't get me started on how public health interventions in general seem to end up treated as moral hazards or wasteful in the US, even when they're _saving_ money...
Decriminalization isn't necessarily the optimal solution.
For hard drugs, something closer to Sweden's Systemboaget [0] where the drug is carefully controlled (and taxed!) by a state monopoly, with the proceeds of this monopoly being used to fund rehabilitation efforts or other support/public-health efforts might be better.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systembolaget