Last time I checked, opioids were illegal in the US. Why are you talking like opiates are legal, so the current situation is evidence that legalization is bad?

Last time I checked, opioids were illegal in the US. Why are you talking like opiates are legal, so the current situation is evidence that legalization is bad? If anything, the current situation with opiates in the US shows ilegalization is not doing much good to the US. Also, the situation in China (if you are talking about the Opium Wars) are not that straight forward "legal opium bad". In fact, opium was legally consumed for centuries all around the globe. China emperors worried about "opium addiction is bad" so they illegalized it multiple times in 1729, 1799, 1814 and 1831. Opium wars started in 1839, but opium smuggling into China due to the prohibition was already rampant since 1729. It will be like saying that all the problems that arised around the Alcohol Prohibition was actually caused by alcohol and absolutely not caused by the prohibition. It looks that drug problems are always linked and worsened to some form of prohibition than to drug usage itself, but somehow it is the only logical and obvious solution to drug problems. Alcohol is worse than heroin (and by definition, way worse than opium) in almost every study (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Adverse_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Adverse_effects). Actually, "harm to others" category (i.e. affects society) is specially bad in alcohol. "Social acclimatation" is not a property of alcohol, any substance can be socially accepted (look at these cocaine ads in the 70's https://www.higherperspectives.com/these-cocaine-ads-from-the-1970s-show-how-much-our-world-has-changed-1429983023.html https://www.higherperspectives.com/these-cocaine-ads-from-th...), even opium or heroin.