I've had friends get fucked up by head shop and online Kratom. It's very far from benign.
While kratom is habit forming and can "fuck you up" if you have no tolerance, the true value is for the person already addicted to opiates looking to get clean.
If you want to keep drugs out of the hands of kids, make them all legal and watch the usage numbers fall. Banning a powdered leaf, that is quite self-regulating, albeit habit-forming, is a step backwards in the quest to put out the structure fire that the opiate crises has become.
Doesn't the UK experience with alcohol counter this?
(I am strongly in favour of legalisation of all drugs).
I suspect it is due to very few amphetamine drugs being prescribed, especially to children. It seems to common to hear about people selling their legitimate ADHD/ADD prescriptions to friends in the US. "Speed Paste" is the only amphetamine properly in circulation and its use is mostly restricted to the hardcore "junkie" groups, very much frowned upon from the casual drug community.
None of the above is a solution, just to note the degree to which groups will gravitate towards and use a drug is not a given. Culture and availability probably affect use massively.
You raise many good points about drug use being different geographically and culturally. It's very much about availability, local drug culture, etc.
For example, the speed paste. As you said, in the UK and in other European countries amphetamine is usually amphetamine in paste form, not crystal methylamphetamine like we usually see here in the states.
Culture and availability absolutely affects use massively, a point I didn't mean to gloss over, and one I'm glad you raised.
I think identifying these differences between countries will bring governments a step closer to finding some sort of solution. Not exactly an easy one though when it comes to culture though. How do you break strong cultural associations?
There seems to be a number of (bad)role models that glorify different drugs in sub-cultures. Opiate use is glamorised from what I can tell in southern HipHop, Cannabis promoted all over the shop, Xanax frequently referred to in Hollywood.
But in the UK it's not even regarded as "abuse". It's perfectly normal for 15 year olds to drink alcohol with their friends. (And not against the law, if they are doing it in private.)
There may be benefits to legalizing drugs, but the idea that it will reduce usage of them is a fantasy.
And it seems that US drug legalisation has resulted in small decreases of use: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/colorado-s-teen-m...
The only thing that's clear is that viewing drug and alcohol usage strictly as a crime problem rather than a health one doesn't work.
I'm not sure what you mean about class background. There must be very few 15 year olds in the UK, from any class background, who haven't used alcohol. I wasn't really referring to binge drinking. My point was that the fact that it's easier for young people to legally drink alcohol in the UK than it is in the US seems to have an effect.
While cannabis simple possession is very rarely prosecuted the police are still going after grow houses. I think it would have to be legitimised (properly legal) to see a decline due to losing the "rebel" factor.
I don't see any reason to believe that legalizing a drug will stop people using it, or cause them to use it more responsibly than they do currently. We have a case study in the form of prohibition in the US. There's certainly no evidence that alcohol use declined following the repeal of prohibition.
I found this a very peculiar claim. Is amphetamine misuse in colleges a big thing in the US?
Edit: never mind, I see this was already discussed.
The demand is high and the supply is there. Low doses of oral methamphetamine arent entirely uncommon either. Meth is cheaper, more potent and more widely available.
The extent to which this can be said to be driven by changes in the licensing regime versus changes in the population structure can't really be determined from this data.
See how productive this is?