Legalise All Drugs?
Posted by Anti Citizen One on July 24th, 2007I heard an interesting debate in the ol’ radio (Law in Action) about legalising all drugs. Both arguments are strong in my opinion.
To Maintain Prohibition (aka War on Drugs):
Harmful drug use will rise, increasing the burden on social services (ok, this is the big one)
To Legalize (but have some regulation presumably):
Drugs are fun (allegedly) and many users don’t have problems.
We can monitor the users for ill effects through the official channels of drug supply.
Law enforcement focused on more harmful crime (users will not clog the courts, police time and prisons)
Less crime (since drugs would be affordable, crime to feed drug habits would be unnecessary. Also organised crime would be reduced since there is no need to import and distribute drugs illegally.)
Quality of drugs will be regulated and reducing risks for users.
Some people currently self medicate for legitimate illnesses - they could do so legally.
“Narco” states could be stabilized because illegal drug production would be replaced by regulated production.
Observations:
It is inconsistent that alcohol (and tobacco smoking) are legal and drugs are illegal. Many people die due to alcohol, so harmfulness is not the deciding issue?
Many people use recreational drugs (approximately 10% of the UK population in the last year), so banning is criminalizing a common behavior. If enough people do any activity, we should question laws that ban that activity.
Some drugs are linked with mental illness.
Most arguments on both sides have little evidence to support them.
Tricky one.
Anti Citizen One
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