As a fairy heavy drug user, I feel I should chime in since it appears most of the comments here are coming from "normies" whose experience with users seems to be limited to homeless street addicts or family/friends who fell apart.<p>1. There are far more users out there than you realize. Almost all of my friends use, they all live normal lives and you wouldn't know it unless you actively partied with them. There are vast swaths of society that aren't opiate or meth addicts, but partake in coke, ketamine, psychedelics, mdma, etc regularly without consequence. You just aren't seeing it.<p>2. Anyone who hasn't been through the criminal justice ringer for drugs likely does not fully appreciate how devastating it can be. In most cases it does not contribute positively to a person's life, can hinder future employment, can cost a person their job, their livelihood, their housing, their kids, etc., for what was likely a victimless crime. Decriminalization, within reason, is a moral imperative. Full legalization, with regulation, is the only way to effectively deal with the problem in its entirety, from supply on down, the same as it was with alcohol.<p>3. Using drugs is a personal choice that people should be free to make, the same as using alcohol (a drug as debilitating, toxic, addictive, etc as most illegal drugs), or scuba diving, or skydiving, or any other high risk activity that we tolerate. Like the latter activities, you can implement licensing requirements such as mandatory education and fees to fund abuse treatment programs. Legalizing it across the board will mandate safe and responsible supply, and remove the criminal organizations from the equation. Again, look at what happened with alcohol prohibition and its eventual legalization. It is the EXACT same as what we are experiencing with drugs.<p>4. Because it is entirely possible to use drugs responsibly, its use in and of itself should not be the focus of criminal enforcement. It is bad behavior that is the issue, and like alcohol, we can criminalize it. Driving drunk, public intoxication, child endangerment, domestic abuse, assault, property damage, etc are all problems we have with drunks, and all are criminalized respectively. There is no reason why we can't do the same with drugs.<p>5. Addiction is a serious issue. But it is a public health issue, and should be treated as such. Turning addicts into criminals is just making a difficult situation worse. These people are sick, they should get help. We also need to serious expand programs for the homeless, as the housing problem is what drives a lot of what you see on the streets.