[threeseed]

Except the issue is that many drugs affect your ability to be responsible.

If people could take heroin or ice and (a) stop whenever they wanted and (b) still function as society expects then nobody would have an issue with them being legal. But drugs like those effectively rewire the brain and are incredibly destructive. A significant amount of domestic violence, child abuse, family breakdown incidents are directly attributable to drugs. You can't blame society for not wanting drugs like those to be readily accessible.

[girvo]

Hi. I'm an ex heroin addict, and while I was addicted for 6 years, only two other people in the world knew. I ran two businesses (one successfully), and wrote innovative software that made people a lot of money. I was successful. There are a number of other techies who have reached out to me to explain their stories, and as it turns out I'm not alone in this.

I still got clean, because the risk of getting caught and the impact that would have on my future outweighed my addiction. I'm glad I did, and I'm lucky Australia treats it as a medical problem, not a criminal one, when you seek help.

[Nursie]

There is an argument that removing the criminal sanctions against addicts might significantly mitigate these problems.

Regardless, the current legislative frameworks around the world (with few exceptions) are based on fear and a twisted sense of morality rather than actual harm.