If we just legalize heroin then people would only shoot up dope safely

Ha ha, you accidentally said something smart.

In parts of Switzerland, for example, addicts are supplied with clean heroin and needles to shoot up safely at a govt. clinic at no charge, as part of a public health initiative. It is stunningly successful.

It costs the citizens far less than arresting and incarcerating users. They get off the street, stop committing crimes to support their habit, hold down jobs, regain custody of their children, slash the risk of disease and death...and receive all the counseling and rehab they want once they decide to kick, which is usually a lot SOONER than when out on the street sucking cock for smack, where they feel trapped with no way out. The only way to cope with the psychic pain of that lifestyle is...to shoot more dope. The vicious circle never ends.

Even Conservative George Shultz, Sec of State under Drug-War Kingpin Ronald Reagan, advocated full drug legalization back in the 80s after he left office. His position was that the drug war is an abject failure; people will get what they want; keeping drugs illegal costs society more than liberty; and viewing drug addiction as a health problem instead of a criminal justice problem is the way.

Yet there are still people who continue to believe stubbornly that if you just make drugs illegal enough, stigmatize users enough, punish them and hate them hard enough, then nobody will have any.