China has the history of the opium wars looming over its drug policy. I'm not going to presume what's best for them because I have never lived there.

I do know that in the imperial core the criminalization and prohibition of drugs are used to oppress and enslave racial minorities. There is no justice for any of that while these racist drug laws remain in effect.

Then there's the harm reduction aspect. The prohibition of hard drugs has created an entirely unregulated drug black market where drug users have little to no recourse if their dealer poisons them. This black market remains as a consequence of prohibition in the imperial core so long as we exist under capitalism. That would remain the case even while we exist under socialism during a transition to a communist society. Drugs, especially opioids, are made wildly more dangerous under current conditions. Legalization with tough regulation is the only path forward.

That said, no one should be allowed to profit off of addictive drugs, they should be provided to people for free if they can demonstrate a history of prior use. This is vastly preferable to people getting desperate enough to consider injecting bathtub krokodil or using heavily stepped on mystery powder Heroin.