In article <[log in to unmask]>, the following
appeared:-
>Difficult one, isn't it? However, IMNSVHO, it would be an extremely BAD
>idea to legalise all drugs. At the present time. Society simply isn't
>ready to handle it.
Nor is society able to handle the crime and disruption caused by the
black market.
>It's all very well for some Iain M Banks type
>science fiction yarn, but the legalization of all recreational drugs in
>1998 Great Britain would be the end. Today, large numbers of people
>cannot cope with the pressure already present in modern life. Imagine
>the chaos if the wide array of mind-altering drugs currently available
>(fairly easily on the black market already if you know where to look -
>allegedly) in some form was available (cheaply, readily, in guaranteed
>strengths) from the off licence. Surely things are enough of a mess with
>tobacco and alcohol? In some form of utopia, everyone could be relied on
>to moderate their intake of consciousness-altering substances. How many
>of us GPs cannot think of at least a dozen patients who would not be
>dead within a year if *every known "recreational" drug* was readily
>available.
At least the drug users would, generally speaking, only be harming
themselves.
>
>Legalization *might* reduce the crime related to the supply of drugs. It
>might reduce the crime related to the addicts who need their next fix.
At present, the black market causes drugs too be available only on the
street from shady charachters to peddle it at grossly inflated prices
with no control on quality. The consequences of which is that the cost
of financing a drug habit is beyond what the vast majority of people can
afford out of earned income. Thus drug users finance their habit by
theft, burlary, robbery, fraud, prostitution etc. If canabis, crack,
heroin etc were put on sale in the tobacconist's at a tenth of the
current street price, the amount of crime needed to finance a drug habit
may be cut by 90% overnight. Furthermore, quality could be controlled.
Thus diminishing the burden to the health services of users who receive
a dose of pure diamorphine for the first time and go into overdose.
Clean needles would prevent spread of hepatitis, AIDS etc. The
government could use drug sales as a form of tax revenue to finance
information, education, rehabilitation etc.
>
>Are you suggesting there would be *no* increase in drug use? Would there
>be no increased morbidity (physical, psychological etc) from that
>increased use?
There would possibly be a significant increase in use, but generally the
drug users would only be harming themselves.
>
>Would the criminals involved in the supply of drugs simply give up their
>lives of crime and turn into law-abiding citizens overnight?
>
There would no longer be any pushers if their product was on sale at a
price which undercut them. Some might seek to replace their income from
other forms of crime, but a significant underlying cause of crime would
be removed.
>Drugs are a very serious problem, but *I* don't think that legalising
>everything is the answer.
Is it drug use - or the black market - that is the problem?
--
John D Dalton
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