You're right to some extend, or even reinforcing my point:

A significant portion of the population is on restricted / controlled / monitored dosage / supply.

Compare my point about unrestricted access.

And yet that significant portion of the population somehow manages not to descend into a life of lawlessness even though meth is incredibly easy to come by almost anywhere in the country.

I'm pointing out that it's absurd to attribute problematic behaviors to the mere consumption of drugs. We severely restrict freedoms in the name of a battle against symptoms rather than address underlying causes. Worse is that our waging of the battle itself is a vicious cycle, serving only to worsen the very same symptoms that it supposedly seeks to address.

Dosage is a major factor. Smoking meth is way different from eating Desoxyn. Even lots of Desoxyn.

Edit: Dosage and route both matter a lot.

Agreed regarding route - I didn't mean to imply that all patterns of use were equivalent. I was trying to illustrate that it isn't some bogeyman that will swallow you whole. The drug alone simply cannot explain the issues that are often attributed to it.

My point here is that many drugs have been demonized to a wholly unscientific degree and I often witness otherwise well educated and thoughtful people zealously perpetuating such myths without stopping to really think them through. IMO blaming bad behavior and even addiction on drugs is an easy out which avoids addressing the much more complicated underlying issues. Overdoses, abuse, addiction, and crime seem to me to be largely to blame on other systemic societal problems. As always, correlation does not imply causality.

Yes, I entirely agree about drugs being demonized. And I believe that people get to choose what drugs to use, and how to use them. But that also means that they're responsible for consequences.

Indeed, some drugs are so demonized that many who use them do get swallowed whole. Because it's what they expect, and part of the motivation.