Regarding your final anecdote - heroin is actually dirt cheap to produce. It's the illegal nature and all the externalities involved that seem to make it so ex

Regarding your final anecdote - heroin is actually dirt cheap to produce. It's the illegal nature and all the externalities involved that seem to make it so expensive for users. We should probably just allow people to buy pure doses of known quantity at drug stores. We'd largely solve overdoses and addict poverty/petty crime that way, I think.