IMO nothing touches opiates as far as addiction potential goes. That shit becomes as important as food, water, and sex to an opiate hijacked brain.
Still, yes I think they should be completely legal. Legalizing these drugs would completely destroy the black market for these drugs and greatly mitigate deaths from shit like fentanyl and carfentanyl.
Heroin isn't the most addictive drug in terms of speed of addiction (though it's up there) the real kicker is that going off it fucking sucks and can kill you. That's why Methadone is ranked fourth (after Heroin, Cocaine, and Nicotine) on dependency even though it doesn't give much of a high making it pretty hard to become dependent on it if you're not on opiates already.
Fun fact, Alcohol is more addictive than Benzos or Speed.
What’s the most addictive in terms of speed of addiction? Nicotine?
Cocaine, probably. Nicotine is close.
Doesn’t heroin push on the pleasure receptors more than Cocaine or Nicotine? I’ve seen charts that out heroin above everything but nicotine in terms of Addictive properties. Do you have a source? Not saying I don’t believe you, but I’m interested for sure. Sounds cool
My source is my molecular bio and drug physiology subjects, but I can definitely find a source or two (There's a famous Lancet paper ranking drugs on several metrics that should come up in a google search.)
How addictive a drug is down to several factors, like delivery, pleasure response, side effects. Heroin is rarely injected initially, usually snorted or smoked (which slows the curve), has pretty severe side effects (severe nausea being the prime one), is expensive and often only available in relatively limited quantities, isn't a social drug etc.