[speedplane]

You're making an assumption and also ignoring a large side affect.

First, you're assuming that legalizing heroin would result in a high quality pure product. Considering that heroin addicts are desparate for heroin, it's pretty likely that they would go to cheaper black market sources with the same quality problems we have today.

Second, legalizing heroin would dramatically normalize it, very likely resulting in many more people becoming addicted to it. Even if the danger of the drug decreased, it would almost certainly be offset by the large increase in new addicts.

In terms of saving lives, I don't see how legalizing heroin can help.