Drug crimes are something of a special case, in that drug laws in the USA (which did not exist in the 19th century) were largely implemented in the early 20th century as a means of population control, with racist overtones (Chinese immigrant use of opium, Mexican and black use of marijuana, etc.). Since drugs were widely used (as was alcohol) across the entire US social spectrum, but enforcement was targeted at specific groups and individuals for political reasons, it's reminscent of what Stalin's head of the NKVD, Beria, said: "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."
This is a standard tactic of authoritarian states: create enough laws such that everyone is guilty of something, and then use selective enforcement of those laws as a mechanism to control the population. Whether or not the USA's promotion of drug laws of this nature qualifies it as an authoritarian state, well, that can be left as an exercise for the reader. The fact that the USA has the world's largest prison population, and that a very significant fraction of that population is there on drug charges, and that wealthy politically connected people rarely get incarcerated on drug charges, are all factors worth considering.
As far as harm caused by fentanyl, if it was legalized and passed out to addicts in the form of transdermal patches in conjunction with addiction treatment and counseling (the original fentanyl formulation for treatment of cancer pain[1]), most of the violent crime associated with fentanyl would vanish. Note also that alcohol itself is far more associated with violence than the opiates are in terms of the direct effects of the substance.
This is a standard tactic of authoritarian states: create enough laws such that everyone is guilty of something, and then use selective enforcement of those laws as a mechanism to control the population. Whether or not the USA's promotion of drug laws of this nature qualifies it as an authoritarian state, well, that can be left as an exercise for the reader. The fact that the USA has the world's largest prison population, and that a very significant fraction of that population is there on drug charges, and that wealthy politically connected people rarely get incarcerated on drug charges, are all factors worth considering.
As far as harm caused by fentanyl, if it was legalized and passed out to addicts in the form of transdermal patches in conjunction with addiction treatment and counseling (the original fentanyl formulation for treatment of cancer pain[1]), most of the violent crime associated with fentanyl would vanish. Note also that alcohol itself is far more associated with violence than the opiates are in terms of the direct effects of the substance.
[1] https://www.jpsmjournal.com/article/S0885-3924(97)00361-8/fu...