So you say the difference is some moral deficiency? ok well why don't we try and treat that. After all we need pain killers in medicine and we want to make them as safe as possible.

Let's call junkeyism a disease and see how we can stop it happening. Maybe by understanding if some people respond better or worse to different kinds of drugs, maybe we could identify a test we could do to work out what would be safe for someone?

Like what do you think it means when a doctor calls something a disease? People can make bad decisions and still get diseases. If inject yourself with the blood of everyone you meet you'll eventually get a few, they don't stop being a disease just because you gave it to yourself (and also we might ask why someone felt compelled to do something so foolish and could we have helped them).

Both the NIH and DSM-5 would disagree.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565474/table/nycgsubuse.tab9/

https://nida.nih.gov/publications/drugfacts/understanding-drug-use-addiction

I can find 10 people to say that ADHD isn't real for every 1 person who says substance use disorder isn't a disease.

Does that mean ADHD isn't a real condition?

So, unpacking your worldview here, how do you feel about cancer brought about by smoking, or by prolonged exposure to materials that you know are radioactive and/or carcinogenic? Does that change with the knowledge that processed meat and plastics, things that are impossible to avoid unless you structure your life around limiting exposure to them, are most likely mild carcinogens?

Also, please tell me, regardless of how you classify addiction, that you at least understand that the only evidence-based approach to drugs is decriminalisation. Almost all of the societal ills associated with them are entirely the fault of their possession and sale being crimes. You can't find safe environments to use them in if they're illegal, nor can you feel safe seeking medical aid if you've taken too high a dose without realising it. If you're a dealer, you have no regulatory bodies to answer to, and pay no taxes on the money you make. If you're running organised crime, you're already sitting on enough of a supply to land you in jail for the rest of your life, and that makes murdering competitors seem like a much more palatable option. And then there's the developing world. Most of the money this makes ends up back in the hands of rebels, warlords and cartels in the developing world, where they cause untold misery and suffering.

But if you legalise them, that nips most of those problems in the bud. You can publicly admit to using them, feel safe seeking medical aid when you mistakenly take too much, get help from programs designed to end your dependence. The dealers go out of business, replaced by actual stores that pay taxes and follow regulations, like not being able to sell to minors or water down your product to sell more of it. Organised crime loses one of its biggest sources of money overnight, given that their expensive material of unknown origin and purity is suddenly replaced by cheaper material of known origin and purity. The cross-border smuggling also ceases, because what else are you going to find that is illegal, compact, and high in value? Oh, and the developing world can actually benefit from drug production, since the criminal groups will be greatly weakened from the loss of profits, and developed world importers would rather deal with legitimate businesses than violent criminals and rebels.

We learnt this shit a century ago with alcohol, one of the most destructive drugs (even meth would not be as destructive if legalised), why are we still doing it?