> You literally said that punishing people for drug crimes doesn't work.

And it doesn't. All 33 of the gangbangers in the OP article will be replaced by new participants in the drug game within a week. There is no way we will incarcerate our way out of our national drug epidemic.

And you're not arguing against the alternative; you are arguing against the strawman you're building, "make everything legal and do nothing else about the problem". Any viable path to reducing addiction and overdose rates also has to include a myriad of social services. The $50k/yr it costs to lock someone up and throw away the key can be better spent on counseling, education, rehabilitation, and "housing first" programs.

We should be taking our cues from nations whose policy is actually reducing drug use among adolescents (new addicts) and opioid deaths overall.

Have a look at the chart here. Does that indicate to you that America's less liberal national drug policy is more or less effective than that of its OECD peer nations?