Sure, in its clean form it won't kill you quickly, but it is a horrendously addictive depressant with significant medium-term and severe long-term neurological and physiological effects that would in themselves cause poverty through loss of work even if it was as cheap to buy as it is to produce.
It should remain a decriminalised controlled substance and every effort should be spent trying to stop people ever starting to take it — the Portuguese strategy. Not least because if it's cheap and freely available, many, many people will overdose on it.
I’m not saying they don’t need help. They absolutely do. I definitely not for legalizing it.
I had a childhood friend spend a decade in federal prison over it.
> If we sold it for a dollar at every gas station we wouldn't have nearlythe same problems with it we do today.
Go to Portugal. Heroin consumption is legalized there. And it isn't a pretty sight.
Also, it was MUCH worse when it was a crime.
https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-po...
Look at drug overdose deaths for instance.