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tweet by Johann Hari: The core of addiction is not wanting to be present in life, because pour life is too painful a place to be. This is why imposing more pain or punishment on a person with an addiction problem actually makes their addiction worse.
I don't think you need legalization to make the decisions necessary to help the health issue, I think you could work that sort of help in with decriminalization as well. However, people will still be using less than safe practices to get said substances without legalization as well, so I do agree it would be the overall better arrangement.
But I do agree with the other commenter, starting with decriminalization is at least a step in the right direction.