Apparently the FDA/DEA disagree, as methamphetamine is legal in the US and doctors can prescribe it for attention issues or obesity. Sales are somewhere above $

Apparently the FDA/DEA disagree, as methamphetamine is legal in the US and doctors can prescribe it for attention issues or obesity. Sales are somewhere above $10M a year. (This is just for methamphetamine. Other amphetamines like Adderall sell like 100x more.) Whereas diamorphine, aka Bayer Heroin(TM)[1], is deemed to have zero medicinal qualities. The DEA is almost certainly wrong (as usual), though if amphetamines were easily obtainable at good prices, the market for meth would likely crash. And you're right that real opiates (to contrast with dirt mixed with fentanyl and sold as "heroin") seem to have little negative effects. Most of the damage is due to the legality and financing issues, which are entirely artificial. (Opiates are incredibly cheap to produce.) 1: Trademark stolen as part of WWI "reparations".