What is your stance on drugs? Should we legalise/control them or not?

[Froozy]

I was reading and came across this

http://uk.news.yahoo....banned-011919288.html

I've done some research and these legal highs the kids are taking can be pretty lethal and no one knows the long term effects of them, one i was reading about even brings on Parkinsons disease!

In Holland and Portugal i believe that casual drug laws have made crime figures decrease so should we adopt a more liberal stance?

Should we legalise them so that our kids can safely do drugs where they know exactly what's in it, know the dosage and cut out the evil drug dealing middlemen?

I would prefer my kids to buy clean drugs from the government rather then off some shady criminal in a dangerous area where they could be taking a lethal cocktail, wouldn't you?

(By kids i don't mean children)

[emmie]

probably one of the toughest questions around, and i am not qualified to make a knowledgeable judgement. However it would seem the war on drugs in any part of the world will never be won, and some are making a mint of money off the back of often very poor people who say harvest opium and those who take it and pay a premium for their fix. I would like to see all recreational drugs stopped, but that is because i have seen first hand what the consequences were of taking hard drugs, a life totally ruined.

[LazyGun]

It is a tough decision to make. Trillions of dollars have been spent over the years in the "war on drugs". Countless numbers have died in violent attack and counterattack between rival drug gangs, and law enforcement officers and gangs. Countless thousands have died through drug overdoses, or contaminants in drugs, or through a lack of understanding of drugs.

Despite all the moneys poured into the war - despite all the government warnings and crackdowns, despite all the educational campaigns around the globe, drug use remains stubbornly refractory. The reason is simply that it appeals to one of the basic human needs, as atavistic as the sex drive, or the need for food and shelter - the need to get high. A proportion of the population, especially the young generation, will always have the desire, the need, to experiment.

Some drugs are so addictive, so harming to your well being and ability to function that they should certainly remain a banned substance. Others though- the so- called recreational drugs, even marijuana, possibly even cocaine, should be legalised. Legalising such drugs would have a number of immediate benefits - A better guarantee as to product safety and purity; a new revenue stream into government coffers; a means of controlling the price of such drugs; a reduction in crimes associated with funding a drug habit;a reduction in young people criminalised because of possession for personal use;the facility for the police to reallocate resources from a stretche budget to more frontline community protection programmes.

Control their use in much the same way we control the use of alcohol, with screening tests, and fines for operating equipment under the influence. Given that alcohol and cigarettes are still currently legal, it seems odd to me that ecstacy for example is not.......

[ummmm]

They'd be a lot less fighting if everyone took an E.

[Kromovaracun]

Personally, I don't see that a drug's danger to someone on its own is a particularly good reason to make it illegal - at least not while alcohol and tobacco enjoy legal status. Furthermore, with many drugs (though not all) - a lot of the danger to the person taking it seems to be eliminated with greater purity.

I don't really see that the 'War on Drugs' is particularly effective or worthwhile. Prohibition of any substance does not have a good track record, and if we care about the effects of drug use on society, then I think we'd be much better off with them legalised. Not only do you have the possibility of severely truncating criminal gangs (including international ones which are historically extremely difficult to police), but you also have a greater degree of control over what goes into said substances.

The only problem is that it has to be govt which steps in to provide it (otherwise you could just get the scenario of the same gangsters setting up legitimate businesses with similar methods - which would be something of a nightmare scenario), and any expansion of government is always problematic. I still think that's a better set of problems than the ones we currently have though.

[KerrAvon]

I do not have a stance on drugs but I do know that prohibition never works.

[woofgang]

of course crime figures decrease if drugs are legalised....crime figures would decrease if anything illegal was made legal.....

[ummmm]

Triggs, have you never had the night horrors? Alcohol can have awful effects on people, I just don't think they relate the two.

[Kromovaracun]

"Ciggs and booze don't keep you awake for days at a time thou, they don't send you on a crash like a weekend of pills and speed do, very dangerous legalising ecstasy IMO."

True. But I'm not sure legalisation would significantly increase usage or the dangers posed by said drugs - at least not in the long run. My reason for saying that is that these drugs are widely available anyway in the current system. Prohibition has not removed their effects from society.

[Zeuhl]

Well let's focus on what we know.

Prohibition has never worked in any context i can think of
e.g. booze in 1920s USA
all it does is feed crime

The huge amount of resource applied to prohibition of drugs in the past 50 years has coincided with an overall massive growth in drug availability

So whatever we have done so far isn't achieving its stated objectives - quite the opposite

Finally, there is an underlying hypocrisy
That otherwise responsible citizens defend their right to use their drugs of choice e.g. alcohol and nicotine which we know cause countless health and social problems
But argue for the prohibition of others

[ummmm]

Would you still get the same 'comedown' if the drugs were of better quality? You can get E's for £1.50-£2 each.

[Kromovaracun]

"of course crime figures decrease if drugs are legalised...."

It's not about "figures" - it's about removing the huge revenue away from criminal gangs, who are responsible for extreme social damage.

Not that governments are exactly a 'safe pair of hands', I admit, but as I said - I think those problems are better than the current ones.

[McMouse]

The police frequently say that most street crime, burglary and shop lighting happened to fund drugs. Having been house burgled twice and both cars broken into I would not only legalise drugs but give them out free to registered addicts.

[emmie]

I wouldn't advocate anyone taking drugs, at any time.

[EDDIE51]

NOT legalise but 'decriminalise' is the way to go. There is a huge diffrence.
Decriminalising means that we do not chase and prosecute users . But supply is still illegal and suppliers are prosecuted. However we supply all drugs ( or medical substitutes) free to users under strictly controlled conditions. This approach has been very successfully used in Portugal recently , there street crime is down by over 60% and the use of drugs has plummeted. As addicts are supplied free there is no profit in illegal drugs and the dealers / suppliers are put out of bussiness over night.
All the expected arguments against decriminalisation were put forward but proved groundless.

[emmie]

trigger, no they shouldn't, anyone who thinks it's ok, safe and so forth needs to see the fallout from these drugs.

[Zeuhl]

And if people are shown the 'fallout' and as adults still want to take them - what then?

Why do others imagine they have the moral authority to prohibit it?

[EDDIE51]

Read this link on the effect of decriminalisation in Portugal . A country which once had one of the highest rates of hard drug use in the world now has the lowest! Cannabis use is less than 1/3rd that of the USA.
http://www.time.com/t...,8599,1893946,00.html