The drug war, in one chart.

This looks like a chart tracking mortality rates associated with various drugs in the past few decades. But it’s also a chart that shows why the drug war—using the state to police use and interdict supply—will always be a miserable mess.

The chart shows how restricting and policing access to pain pills led to a surge in heroin use, with heroin use resulting in a higher mortality rate because it’s street heroin and injection is riskier than taking a pill. The iron law of probation, in turn, means that the more a substance is policed, the people who operate in the black markets will gravitate towards the most potent drug because it’s easiest to smuggle, and voila: fentanyl.

The logic is always the same. Drug xyz so bad that we have to do everything to force people to stop using and selling. Treatment over incarceration for addicts, sure—but dealers? Decades in prison!