There is a good possibility, however, that drug addiction would diminish in a free society. For one, the mystique of illegality will have been removed. But more fundamentally, drug addiction is usually a psychological problem. The best way to kick it is for a person to bring it to the surface, talk about it, and try to figure out the reasons that he is engaging in self-destructive conduct. Because drug addiction is driven underground by criminal penalties, addicts are scared to death to be open about their addictions, for fear that their children, their neighbors, or their friends will turn them in to the authorities.
Conservatives argue that drug addiction can be ended with years of incarceration.
But that really hasn't proven to be the case. For one thing, the authorities can't even keep drugs out of well-guarded prisons. But again, simply depriving an addict of his drug doesn't get at the root of the problem. As long as the underlying psychological causes haven't been addressed, the addict will simply engage in some other self-destructive conduct. Moreover, while conservatives want government to regulate most areas of morality, there are some areas that at least some conservatives would oppose regulating.