Like I said, I am not an expert on this subject; so take what I'm going to say with a grain of salt...
But it seems to me a body count doesn't seem to make much of a difference. There is already a body count from people dying due to taking drugs. It doesn't seem to deter them any. People will do what they want to do as they tend to believe it won't happen to them, get caught, etc.
Capital punishment doesn't appear to be deterring people from killing cops. We'd have to institute real fear in these people Saddam Hussein style and that will never happen as it would be "cruel and unusual." Easier to let "Survival of the Fittest" to take its natural course in society. We allow people to drink themselves to death. Why not allow those that wish to drug themselves to death the same freedom? They're going to do it anyway; so why keep the dealers flush with cash by keeping it illegal? Just my rather naive approach to it. 
The penumbra of destruction wrought by only one kid who gets addicted can be incredible in a family. Despite all the braying of "not hurting anyone (else)" the damage goes far and wide.
Granted, the addicts will kill themselves, given a chance. We don't go handing loaded guns, ropes, or straight razors to depressed people, why do the same for people with chemical dependencies?
When you're happy that a kid is in prison where they will have a much harder time OD-ing rather than out on the streets (where they were last found, unresponsive, saved by the convenience store clerk who saw the two skanks roll him out of his pickup and administered CPR and a cop with a shot of Narcan to reverse the effects of the Fentanyl laced heroin he did), maybe you will understand. That was one of my grandsons. He
was a good kid, he
had that winning smile. He
was a good worker. He got into that sh*t, and ended that. Thankfully he is in rehab (again), but after that, grandma will worry until he's back in jail.
It is the dealers who make the drug available, who profit from it awash in the pain, misery, blood, and collateral crime that comes from having junkies around. They don't care. Stolen goods, broken vehicle windows and torn out dashboards, houses damaged, businesses, homes, and people robbed, storage units looted, and basically anything not tied down stolen.
If those tools were what you use to earn a living, an addict doesn't care. They are fixated on that next fix.
It also breeds unreal violence, and sexual exploitation and rape go hand in hand.
It isn't a culture we need, nor want roaming the streets--anywhere in America, and definitely not in our back yards. No place, no neighborhood, no economic class is immune.
But someone is getting a lot of money out of it. The rest of us are picking up the tab, and legalizing it will not change that. A friend who lived in Denver moved after pot was legalized there. He said police no longer responded to property crimes because they were too busy with other matters. So the official story does not reflect the crime rates there because the paperwork never got filled out. Not something you want in your neighborhood--he moved out of the state.
The "war" has not been fought to win, only to be as intrusive and onerous for the average non-user as possible, and only to 'fight' the low end user, not the major dealers. Makes you wonder why the not uninterrelated matters of deporting illegals, securing the border, fighting drugs, social problems, street violence, and even looting were not more effectively pursued by the last administration. That doesn't mean that this administration should not put the effort into all of those issues that is needed to better eliminate the problems, and drugs can be found arm in arm with all of them.
