I rarely bring this up mainly because people tend to either lable me as a junkie so passionate about his habit he thinks hard drugs should be legalised, OR people are just to ignorant to hear my point of view, so they dont listen and process my (possibly) valid inferences. I'm in no way new to drugs or ignorant of the fact they alter attitudes, so I'm in no way implying the negative effect of drugs constantly bombarding us on the news or in newspaper reports is purely propaganda fabricated as a drug deterrant.
If I had to put it in question form, I would say:
Question 1.
Do you think laws imposed on various aspects of the drug culture (eg. possession, trafficking, etc), compliments the increase in reoccuring (and reported) instances where regular/habitual usage of the drug/s has a largely negative and/or permenant impact on a persons mental/physical health?
Question 2.
Could the actual laws be causing more problems to arise than the drugs itself?
Question 3.
Do you think its possible that a person of good mental health is more likely to use drugs while less frequently suffering commonly reported side effects, compared to that of a person who may suffer from any level of diagnosed/undiagnosed mental problem/s?
Background and Reasoning
1. I think its worth some research into how tightening drug laws seem to compliment the number of reported cases where a user suffers 'side effects' like depression, paranoia, psychosis, etc. As laws become increasingly strict for thoes caught possessing/trafficking/etc illict substances, reported cases of thoes conditions above seem to increase, largly fueling the bad stigma attached to drugs.
2. Instilling fear into people through anti-drug campaings and the use of police presence in and around clubs is apt to make people nervous about taking their drugs into a club, or doing a drug deal at a club instead of the privacey of, say, their own home. Stricter laws means more nervousness, which will increase cases of paranoia or psychosis and their severity.
3.This is strictly from my own observations. Its not my firm belief that people only get fucked up on drugs because the laws are too tough, but as someone keeping an open mind on drug use and harm reduction, I can't deny the relationship between the two. I've never heard any reports on drug usage that has been positive, and probably never will. Biast, conflicting and volatile research results makes the general concensus that drugs only ever fuck people up.
And I wont deny seeing people consumed by that path. But I also can't deny that, aswell as quite a few of my friend, I myself have been doing this for a good while (the last 4 years, 3 of thoes years I was using daily), without ending up in rehab or a psych ward. And the people who frequently succumb to dark depth of drug abuse more often than not suffer from some kind of problem mentally, which goes unnoticed because they might only be mildly affected, but with regular drug use, the problem surely will increase the prevelence and severity of underlying problems.
Food for thought I guess ...