Answer: Wouldn't a focus on drug addiction health care in the US lower demand instead of declaring a war on drugs? It would be cheaper and healthier?

For context, this is a question I answered on Quora

It would not only lower demand but lower overdose deaths as well more than any increase of bureaucrats with guns or carpet bombing Latin America could ever do. Overdose deaths have already declined 27% between a peak of 110,000 in mid 2023 to 80,000 in late 2024 due to OTC availability of naloxone in 2023. Widespread exposure of Purdue Pharmas marketing fraud scheme also lead to fewer opioid prescriptions that as I pointed out in a prior answer was an actual gateway drug for most people who became heroin and fentanyl addicts over the past quarter century. Fewer people initiating prescription opioid use = fewer future opioid addicts.