Trigger warning for the picture: needle
Just speculating, but it seems that the number of people using hard drugs wouldn’t really change. Trends might bounce around a bit after a legal shift, but the people who are more likely to use would still likely use.
Changing the policies around how people are treated as users is an awesome thing! However, money would still need to be pumped into prevention education and anti-trafficking enforcement to start reducing availability and use. (Anti-trafficking is a double-edged sword, and prevention education effectiveness is subject to massive debate.)
My point is that if hard drugs are decriminalized, it probably wouldn’t change an existing trend.
(Again, just speculating.)
Agreed, I would hope that along with the new policy that the enforcement savings were put into changing the behaviour. Interesting that fentanol test rates are going up, and deaths are also up 5%. Wonder if the presence of fentanol in their opiod supply has increased. That’s a very solvable problem, if people are willing to go full 🇨🇭
