Plus it's devastating physically. The welts, scratching, paranoia, food avoidance, tooth eating qualities, etc, are pretty unique. It wrecks your body pretty fast. Serious meth addicts seem to age at a 10x+ factor compared to other addicts. Twentyish old people look 40+ after just a year or so after getting hooked.
I'm pretty liberal, but I would fight against legalization of meth. It's really terrible. Meet a girl in her 20's that's been on it a year or two and you might see the issue. Not yet 30, but no teeth left, massive skin issues on their face/arms/upper torso from the welts/scratching, emaciated, and infertile. Also often HIV and/or Hep-C from trading sex for drugs. That shit is pure poison.
I do feel differently about marijuana, ecstasy, benzodiazepines, mdma, etc. They don't seem much different from alcohol, which we openly condone, despite the obvious issues. At least none of them (mostly) destroy lives in the span of a few years.
Opiates are somewhere in the middle for me. Legalization seems dangerous, but not as obviously stupid as for meth. It's in the same category as crack for me. No real casual/functioning users, really, just almost inevitable misery.
That said, I would still support its legalization as long as it could only be administered in controlled environments.
> As of 2015, the long-term effects of MDMA on human brain structure and function have not been fully determined.
MDMA in itself isn't as bad as other drugs, as has been mentioned. It's the compounds that it's cut/mixed with that poses most of the immediate dangers. In fact, the therapeutic potential of MDMA is reason enough for it's rescheduling.
I'm not saying MDMA is as bad as other drugs, nor that it should be illegal. My cousin's uncle's daughter's brother has taken it several times, and he thinks it definitely has a lot of potential for therapy - can't attest to PTSD, but he can absolutely see it working for couple's counseling.
What I'm saying is that it shouldn't be something you can pick up for $5 at the gas station. If MDMA were legal, I would want there to be some pseudofed-like limit to how often you could purchase it (one dose every 3 months is generally considered safe), and I would also want it to be required to take the drug immediately after purchase.
But since we've done such a great job of making those things illegal and impossible to get, our children end up on meth.
I blame meth on government policy.
People would never have reason to try meth in the first place if they could easily, legally and cheaply smoke pot or take one of the above mentioned drugs.
I knew [past tense] some coke addicts, not pretty.
Alcohol is not "good" on the other hand its effects usually take a decade or more of heavy use to show up in most adults-whereas heavy use of other drugs ravage people quicker.