A suggestion to make the world a better place (for EG)Follow

After reading EG's post on unpopular ideas that would change things for the better, here the first one of my own suggestions.


Legalise all drugs:


This one is definately not a vote winner, and yet it's bound to happen one day. I'm referring to drugs like cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy, etc... What we call recreational drugs.

The (illegal) drug industry is the biggest in the world after the arms trade. It is an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars. And it's all in the hands of criminals. It fuels wars, conflicts and terrorism. It is the cause of so much instability in the world, and funds guerrila groups and private armies from Afghanistan, to Columbia, to the block of some run-down street.

The "war on drugs" costs billions/year, and yet produces no result whatsoever. These drugs are ever-more available, and their cost is ever-decreasing.

The fact it is such an illegal industry means that the drugs are of poor quality, often cut with rat poison or washing powder, leading to the death of many addicts.

The fact it is in the hands of criminals also pushes them to try to sell harder stuff. Why have a client on cannabis when you could tempt him with cocaine?

The drug laws are also a sham. Sending drug users to prison is ridiculous. All it does is turn them into proper, professional criminals.

Drug-addiction is a health problem, not a crimimnal one. If the addict commits a crime (mugging, burglary, etc...) then its a different story, and a criminal one. But an addict that funds his addiction legally (through a job), should not be a criminal. He should not go to jail, but to a rehab center. Some will say it is incredibly expensive to fund health clinics for alld rug-addicts. And it's true.


This is another reason why drugs should be legalised, and their production and distribution nationalised.

Now, I'm not advocating selling cocaine over the counter in supermarkets. Obvisusly,. There has to be strict regulations, and different regimes for different dfrugs.


Cocaine and heroin should be sold by the local doctor, who would keep a health record of his patient. The patient should be sent to compulsory rehab clinics, and if unemployed, made to particiapte in community projects (cleaning up the parks, repainting the neighbourhood, whatever..) to help his integration in society. The patient wont want illegal heroin, since it will be much more expensive, and much less clean than the legal one. And since he willbe monitored, it will be much easier to rehabilitate him.

Cannabis and ecstasy should be sold in special shops, with limited amounts to be kept in and sold, and with stict ID checks. In the same way, records of who buys what/when should be kept. The THC is skunk should be kept under 15%. Users wont buy illegal drugs for the same reason: poor quality, poor price, and dangerous.


All this would enable the governemnt to make loads of money that can be reinvested in mental health care to rehabilitate those people.

The criminals involved would go broke extremely quickly, thereby reducing their overall power.

Countries like Morocco and Columbia could have a legal coca/cannabis prodcution, improving their gdp.

The prisons would empty. Crime would go down.


All this of course, has to be done with heavy and comprehensive education from a young age, with strong and effective rehabilitations programs, and with heavier prison sentences for illegal dealers.

It is not a vote-winner. It is not "moralistic".

And yet, it is time we wake up to the fact that people take recreational drugs. That no amount of prison will stop them from it. That the only ones benefiting from this are the criminal gangs. And that the current strategy is completely inefficient and incredibly expensive.

You don't get out much, do you?

First, if your kid wants drugs today, he will get them. Without any ID check. And they will contaminated, laced drugs.

Second, it's obvious that the sale of drugs, like alchohol, would be only for over 18s. So your kid will able to get hold of it as much as he can get hold of alcohol.

Third, increased education will enable your kid to make a reasonable choice about it, knowing full well the medical risks and complications that taking drugs will lead to. So, he will be able to make an informed choice, as opposed to buying an illegal product to be "cool" without knowing what he is taking.

I'm not saying that no one will buy drugs.

But it won't increase the number of people taking it. Only their education about it, the quality of the drug (not in terms of potency, but in terms of purity), and the control of governement over it.

I know this isn't a vote winner. I know we'd much rather pretend that problem isn't there, or that the "war on drugs" is somewhat effective.

But it's ********* My kids will take drugs if they want to.

I'd rather they did it knowing the risks and consequences. And, if they take them, I'd rather it wasnt laced with rat poison. I'd rather the money they spent was directed towards drug education, rather than terrorism or people trafficking. I'd rather the guy that sells them kept a record of it, rather than try to push harder drugs onto him.

This solution isn't perfect, of course. Legalising them will mean that there is some kind of "societal approval" of drugs. Just like there is some kind of "societal approval" of alcohol. But I also think a lot of kids smoke cannabis because its "cool". Taking away its illegality will also take away some of that "coolness".

These effects are almost entirely due to current conditions under which heroin is ingested, and not to the drug itself.

I'm not offering an opinion on legalizing it, but unless a controlled study were available using otherwise healthy subjects, it's impossible to speculate about the long-term effects of the drug itself.

I suspect there will be some. I suspect they won't be the ones on that list.

I have another suspicion, by the way. I suspect that if drugs currently illegal were made legal, they would lose a lot of their appeal and would be replaced by other, not-yet-legal substances.

We're not talking about the most mature and rational segment of the population, after all. The borrowed glamor or rebellion is half of the appeal, at least at first.

I agree on that score, moreover i see no reason why it isn't already legal since it is no more damaging than tobacco and has far more possible benefits.

But class A drugs are lethal chemicals and if the widespread problems cause by the Crack epidemic in American inner cities isn't reason enough to keep them as hard to get hold of as possible i don't know what is.

Nadenu wrote:

Point taken... that should have read "easy access to formerly hard to obtain drugs." I'm not naive enough to believe that they can't get them now but, at least in our community, it is hard for them to get.

Exactly.

Crack is another exemple of why leaving the drug market in the hands of criminals is, well, criminal.

Why was crack created? Because it cheaper, easier to carry, gives a much bigger high but a much longer and much more painful "come-down", and because it is much more addictive. Which, for a criminal drug dealer, is perfect. They created it, and pushed it onto kids to whome they were selling coke or cannabis.

A governemnt controleld industry would never do that. If they were to produce "new drugs", they would be less addictive, have a less "come-down", and be less harmful.

Drug-dealer want drugs as addictive and as strong as possible. A governemnt would want drugs as harmless and least addictive as possible.

I'd rather the governemnt controlled this industry.

You can also have an addiction, the cost of which exceeds your excess spending cash. I can take a stab at which scenario is more likely.No one is going to jail merely for checking into a clinic. And I find it hard to believe that heroin addicts wouldn't be ostracised regardless. Hell, we've made pariahs out of tobacco users.I also have my doubts at the "cheapness" of this. Who is making this stuff? Pharmacuticals companies? Coca-Cola? Johnson & Johnson? Hershey? If they know people will spend tens of thousands of dollars on a cocaine habit, why sell it for $10? Will there be forced price fixing by the government? If so, shouldn't the government fix prices on life-saving useful medications rather than recreational narcotics?

Sure, because fixing the price and then taxing the hell out of it wouldn't be immoral at all.

I maintain that legalising a lethal drug (As in kill you now, not it might kill you in 20 years) is state sanctioned murder.

Yummy! I wouldn't mind walking into Walgreens and buying a chocolate-covered heroin bar!

I remember the nostalgic memories of such things that may occur still in such places as the establishment of my latter period of middle schooling in which people would talk of such frabjous things as getting a handle to some extent as to getting Xanax. Such things might be a greater enjoyment so share in a familiar nostalgia with one's children if access with made easier though I suppose to some extent.

Hazards of addiction aside... whoo hoo! More litigation! People are suing cigarette companies because they're addicted to them. Now you want to open the govt up to that kind of litigation?

Oh yeah, that'll lighten the burden on the legal system, not to mention save lots of money.