The approach of allowing a limited amount of some "vice" (or otherwise disfavored activity), highly regulated, combined with stiff penalties for illegal use is a pretty common approach to greatly reduce anti-social activity.
The approach of allowing a limited amount of some "vice" (or otherwise disfavored activity), highly regulated, combined with stiff penalties for illegal use is a pretty common approach to greatly reduce anti-social activity.
Yes... harm reduction approaches can be effective. The point is that they also need a "very annoying" frictional element to prevent harm reduction from creating worse outcomes than prohibition.
The existing Las Vegas & Indian casino system we had previously effectively achieved this goal by making any gambling habit include regular travel, which itself prevents the habit from becoming a daily or even weekly activity.
"Legalizing dangerous drugs" doesn't mean you can go to the store and buy meth. I mean we create a safe consumption site, where you have to go through harm reduction education, be offered alternatives, and likely have things like blood work done to check for potential disease spread and damage from the drugs themselves.
The point is that the harm reduction strategy has to be annoying enough where non-addicts would not engage in the process, whereas addicts would go through the process trivially.