Legalization of recreational use of cannabis over the last decade or so has shown a significant increase in cannabis use across the US.
Decriminalizing hard drugs and focusing on treatment will help, but legalizing the sale of hard drugs like fentanyl and meth would be batshit insane.
And unless the sale of the drugs is legalized and regulated, there’s still going to be a heavy black market for them that the cartels will fill.
It’s one thing to legalize and regulate something like cannabis which is relatively harmless, resulting in the black market shrinking because people can readily get it legally. It’s another thing entirely to legalize selling crack.