I don’t think legalization will reduce addiction (though would defer to empirical studies here). It would make the economic cost of addiction lower for the individual – one problem instead of two.<p>More importantly, it would make doctors (and regulators) more honest participants. If a doctor wants to recommend opiates, it would largely remove their economic incentives for doing so. We don’t think of doctors having much economic incentive for prescribing acetaminophen or ibuprofen, by comparison.