Eh, I think shame as a societal tool is outmoded anyway. Sure, it can be used by our monkey brains to enforce "the greater good" as judged by our peers, but in

Eh, I think shame as a societal tool is outmoded anyway. Sure, it can be used by our monkey brains to enforce "the greater good" as judged by our peers, but in some countries "the greater good" is throwing gay men off buildings. The US is filled with so many contrasting opinions that it's a survival skill to be able to ignore people trying to induce feelings of "shame". Whether you're a liberal who doesn't want to feel shameful that you're a feminist, or gay, or want healthcare for everyone, or a republican who doesn't want to feel shameful that you're against gay and trans people existing, want to ban abortion, throw the economy to the war machine etc. I don't think your argument extends at all to a hard drugs problem, though. As a gay man who has learnt to ignore the "shame" of being gay and to ignore the (surprisingly still high number of) people that shoot me disgusted looks if I dare to hold a man's hand in public, I'm not also going to suddenly _not_ feel shameful if I get into hard drugs. Also, I don't think you understand hard drugs at all. Pretty sure "shame" isn't even a blip on the radar of the awareness of the hard drug user, across all cultures and all of history, such drugs have been so potent that the addicted can only focus on the next fix; things like shame and morality sink into the background as effects of withdrawal from the drug take hold. For example, China has a strong, stroooong culture of shame and societal shaming, but they still had that trouble with Opium, by your logic enough shame would've stamped that out immediately. People on those drugs don't work like people not on those drugs.