You got exposed to such substances because the law enforcement failed to apply the rules against controlled substances.
Despite this, the fact that the substance is illegal or controlled, made that less people have been exposed (and eventually addicted) than if the substance was freely circulating.
Singapore was well known to have a strong opium problem. Now they have death penalty, no opium problem anymore.
Clear example:
If cannabis cakes (space cakes) were legal, I'd consume them but they are not, and I do not trust + do not want to fund dealers. So I don't buy them.
Another example:
Alcohol is forbidden to 12 year old kids. Yes, some of them may find a workaround, and a way to buy it, but because of that you are still helping a large segment of the kids to not get early into addiction.
If tomorrow you say to the kids that they can drink wine (in French schools it was possible before for kids!), then they are more likely to get addicted.
Yes, there is still a small % that will get exposed, no solution covers 100% of the population, but if you can save 6 out of 10 addictions by regulating the substance, then you are doing a good job.
You don't understand how addiction works. Most people can try almost any drug and not get addicted. Some people will seek out drugs and get addicted no matter what the laws are. Banning the drugs does nothing to help most people, because they don't need any help, they don't have the genes, the impulsivity, the lack of executive functioning for it to be a problem!. It does plenty to harm the people who are going to get addicted anyway.
And I mean, if you have to use Singapore as some shining example of your vision of the world, you're pretty far into crazy land already. There is no way to meaningfully enforce drug legislation without violating human rights en masse. History has proven this again and again.
I live in a state where sports betting was recently legalized and suddenly a lot of people are addicted to gambling who weren't before. There're also many people who got addicted to legally prescribed pain medication, it seems unlikely all of these addicts would have sought out heroin from a sketchy drug dealer had they not been introduced to the pain medicine first.
You'd be surprised how many heroin addicts have chronic pain problems.
Chronic pain is a strong predictor of opioid addiction, but the opioid crisis is mainly caused by wild overprescription of and over-reliance on these drugs in the medical industry. This is also why it's so specific to the US. This is a question of regulation, not legality.
Gambling addiction is not something I'm willing to comment on, because I've not studied it nearly as much as I have drug addiction. But I can see the same points applying there; regulation is also an important topic, not just legal status.
My country has a state monopoly on gambling. It's not perfect, but it's not terrible either, and I could easily see a completely hands off approach being much worse.
Just because you can effect health improvements by strict government controls, I don't think that means we should.
> Now they have death penalty, no opium problem anymore.
Hardly a policy that I think makes sense in the US.
We could solve 6/10 instances of obesity by a strict governmental intervention into diets. I don't think that would be "doing a good job", even if the health outcomes would be improved.
We could eliminate tons of cancers by banning both tobacco and alcohol. I don't think we should (as a non-user, I hate everything about tobacco; I could easily reduce my ~20 drinks/year to 0).
We could eliminate a lot of greenhouse gas emissions and heart disease by banning the farming, sale, and consumption of animals. I don't think we should.
I'm skeptical that Singapore's policy is working as opposed to driving the drug trade underground. Draconian drug restrictions haven't worked in the US, and the death penalty wouldn't do anything here.
What about personal freedoms? Is eroding our individual rights really worth criminalizing something like coffee just because it might be physically addictive?
Despite this, the fact that the substance is illegal or controlled, made that less people have been exposed (and eventually addicted) than if the substance was freely circulating.
Singapore was well known to have a strong opium problem. Now they have death penalty, no opium problem anymore.
Clear example: If cannabis cakes (space cakes) were legal, I'd consume them but they are not, and I do not trust + do not want to fund dealers. So I don't buy them.
Another example: Alcohol is forbidden to 12 year old kids. Yes, some of them may find a workaround, and a way to buy it, but because of that you are still helping a large segment of the kids to not get early into addiction.
If tomorrow you say to the kids that they can drink wine (in French schools it was possible before for kids!), then they are more likely to get addicted.
Yes, there is still a small % that will get exposed, no solution covers 100% of the population, but if you can save 6 out of 10 addictions by regulating the substance, then you are doing a good job.