It's nice of The Metro to publicise this report (pdf), by proper charity Transform (according to its accounts, it gets about £100,000 in donations and nothing from the government). The response from the Home Office at the end is the usual excruciating fact- and logic-free crap.
It certainly makes a refreshing change from the dumbass readers' letters that The Metro published this morning:
So Alec thinks 'drug use is a victimless crime? Tell that to the friends and families of addicts who are forced to watch their loved ones descend into dependency, poverty and even crime to fuel their habit. It's not big or clever. Ruth, Birmingham.
Where does Alec think these drugs come from? Organised gangs that fund child prostitution and murder. Lee Dancer, Essex.
UPDATE: for completeness, Alec's original letter (text, actually) in yesterday's Metro was as follows: "There shouldn't be a 'war on drugs'. Drug use is a victimless crime and should be legalised and taxed. Alec, London." In itself worthy of being made 'Reader's letter of the day' for its brevity, if nothing else.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
"Halve drug deaths by making heroin and cocaine legal"
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7 comments:
The ignorance in government and sheeple is stunning at times.
Prohibition doesn't work, it's as simple as that. At any time, of any substance, in any civilisation.
I see the gov response gemmied in the 'public health cost' line. It's becoming a mantra, a misdirection of the public which authoritarians have come to view as incontestable.
Divorce health provision from the state purse and the problem is solved.
DP, as a moderate in all things, I say legalise them (which massively reduces public health cost, public crime cost) and tax them; the tax can go in the pot with alcohol and tobacco duties to fund a basic level of privately provided healthcare (with voluntary private top-ups, of course).
Treat being high as a form of voluntary "mental-illness" and put the responsibility for the care of the user during being high on the seller.
MW
This is one area where the "market" might not be the optimum solution. Legalise drugs certainly but use a state agency as the distribution channel. If you leave distribution to the market you will create the conditions whereby it is in the interests of the distributor to maximise drug use: whatever ones views on legalisation, actually encouraging people to consume heroin, cocaine etc is not (IMHO anyway) a "good thing". Leaving drug distribution to the (illegal) market post the relatively benign (up to the late 60s) regime in the UK was, I believe, part of the reason why drug use exploded thereafter. I know that there would be a temptation by the state to commercialise drug dealing (to maximise the equivalent of what is a tax take) but, at leat, such a policy would be seen for what it is.
U, of course the harder drugs would have to be via doctors or pharmacies with a proper full-cost charge (read the report!). We don't need to speculate on possible increases in usage - just look at UK pre- and post-1970-ish; or look at what happens in Switzerland where they reintroduced policy last year.
Or cannabis use in Netherlands that fell slightly once semi-legalised (cont. page 94).
I suppose one might see the virtues of a State-controlled drugs outlet in the High Street selling all manner of quality-checked, legalised and appropriately-taxed drugs, 24/7.
And of course including alcohol and tobacco, no longer permitted in supermarkets and local shops?
wv = "moods" (which seems spookily appropriate)
Problem with soft drugs being illegal is that it compels users to associate with drug dealing criminals who have a direct interest in selling them more dangerous drugs. I have witnessed the results of this many times and it ain't pretty.
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