> Yes, gas stations sell sketchy 'legal highs', but those are an entirely separate category of drugs from synthetic opiates like fentanyl I never claimed they

> Yes, gas stations sell sketchy 'legal highs', but those are an entirely separate category of drugs from synthetic opiates like fentanyl I never claimed they weren't. My point was that if it was just about kids wanting to get high, they could easily find one elsewhere, for cheaper and most likely it would be easier to obtain. > Dealers in schools selling hard drugs exist because the cartels have the economies of scale to produce and smuggle opiates in huge quantities, which their adult customers consume in huge quantities and pay (in aggregate) huge amounts for I don't disagree with this point. > If that adult demand goes away because they can get their hard drugs legally and safely elsewhere (the Swiss model), it is no longer profitable to peddle fentanyl in junior high bathrooms in exchange for a teen's lunch money I'm pretty sure people living in Portugal / Switzerland aren't legally buying synthetic opioids like fentanyl, and even if they are - the investment into social programs like substance abuse treatment, education and mental health, dwarfs whatever the US invests in these areas. Decriminalizing / legalizing all drugs or the manufacture and distribution of said drugs, is not going to solve the opioid epidemic in the US. Drug addiction and death are profitable and there is much incentive for policy makers to preserve the status quo. The lack of social programs and infrastructure is arguably a larger hurdle we'd need to overcome before legalization would bear any fruits. Not every country is a Switzerland or Portugal and you can't just lift and shift and guarantee success. Even the countries that have implemented these types of policies have experienced increases in opioid use: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(22)00131-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...