The current opiod crisis was largely created by over-prescription of legal, regulated opiods and subsequent rejection of further prescription; something that led many addicts to search out alternative sources, which grew a market for gray and black market opiods, which grew into whatever you want to call what we have now - tons of unregulated and often 'dirty' fentanyl and carfentanil flooding the system and ending up in everything.

I guess I'm saying I know where you are coming from, and increasing usage isn't going to be a great idea. On the other hand, felonization of it and the halo effect of street crime etc. absolutely is causing massive harm, arguably worse than the scenario you describe. It's not an easy problem to make real progress with.

So let's regulate them! (though as someone else pointed out they are indeed currently regulated, just not well)

> Human thought when addicted to hard drugs is not logical. Giving people the freedom to consume them has the effect of allowing them to forfeit their freedom from choice when they become addicted. Making them even more widely available will just cause more to become ensnared in their web.

I frankly find it bizarre when people venture down this train of thought. Should we eliminate all potential sources of illogical behavior? You mentioned sex, should we regulate that? Sugar? Groups (which inspire groupthink)? What even is the threshold for you for "logical?"

If we assume consenting adults are capable of making decisions and we value their freedom in doing so, drug prohibition is directly counter to that value.

Now if you truly want to venture down the road of restricting freedom to what is "logical" or some such thing, that actually is a road I think you could reasonably trod down (it's not a popular argument and I think it's pretty hard to make work but I can see a possible world with very little individual freedom but high degrees of flourishing, the problem is it's much more likely when you remove freedom flourishing also suffers b/c the possibilities narrow towards the needs of whomever still holds freedom, ie those in power), but I doubt that actually is where you were headed, drugs just tends to get this kind of double speak for historical reasons.