This issue causes me some serious cognitive dissonance. I can't get behind having certain drugs legalized, and packaged for sale (by profit driven big corporations/med industry, no less, who the hell do you think is going to be top dog in this scenario?). I'm thinking drugs like opiates, meth, GABA stuff... mostly the harder stuff with serious abuse potential and serious withdrawal syndromes. I just can't support that kind of free for all. Drugs can easily fuck people up, even when the struggles of availability/price are removed.
Decrim? Sure. All the way. Harm reduction, no more prison for smaller amounts, all that stuff. Possibly clinics/doctors that can prescribe a current addict his DOC under certain regulations. But that's where some of the dissonance comes in... it's like you have to have people illegally selling the drugs to get them, and only after that can you get them legally. It's weird. Legal drugs would be a regulatory nightmare... and not something I'd want on store shelves that 18 year olds could go buy, freely, cheaply and easily (More dissonance, I know there's no age limits on illegal drugs). Not in this irresponsible society, not for a long time yet.
Decriminalization would be a huge step in the right direction in my opinion. However, it will not be enough.
With decriminalization, the drug cartels will continue to provide these drugs which will always be in demand, and they will continue to charge astronomical prices for them.
Research has proven that when it comes to drugs with the highest risk of habit forming behavior by the user, such as Heroin, it has been proven that Heroin users are able to live a "normal" life as long as that void is filled. In other words, if the heroin user is able to obtain the drug at always the same purity and for a low price, chances are that (bar the rare exception) he will resort to paying the bills, taking care of other responsibilities, returning to work or looking for a job, and so forth. I speak from personal experience about this as well, because when I had an unlimited supply of my opioids, as long as my mu-opioid receptors were saturated by an opioid, I don't continue to focus on the drug, but rather, I return to my errands, my responsibilities, my job, etc. And I perform them well, and without nodding away.
Therefore, I believe that decriminalization is not enough. And all drugs need to be legalized. Now I'm not saying that they should all be available in the same way. Pure Diacetylmorphine (Heroin) should not be available to the public in the same manner that 1kg bags of sugar are in a grocery store, as that would obviously be rather reckless. If however, they could be sold in the form of pills (a la Tylenol), or vials (for those of us who like to poke ourselves), or perhaps as a cartridge for an e-cigarette?
In fact, I think that Methamphetamine, Diacetylmorphine, and Cocaine cartridges for e-cigarettes (as well as vials of each) could be a decent idea in terms of harm reduction.
I'd also love to see pure MDMA pills or capsules for sale.
In addition, there should be educational material handed out with each drug to help minimize the risk of overdose.
Despite what mainstream society may believe, street drug users (minus the deliberate rarity) don't have a death wish, meaning that they do pay attention to not use a fatal amount of a specific drug. I know that I'm always careful not to overdo it with opioids, benzos, booze, cocaine, amphetamines, and so forth. And if I wasn't, I'd have been dead long ago.
You will always have people who think they're invincible, or they don't know any better, and they'll end up overdosing on a certain drug. But this kind of behavior is less prevalent than the media and law enforcement tries to make us believe.
Just to give you an example of how sensationalized and misleading the risks of "hard drug" use is by the media, certain bureaucrats, and law enforcement, consider the following statistics:
- For every 100,000 heroin users in present day America, 141 of them end up overdosing when using. This means that, as a habitual heroin user in America today, every time you use, there is a 1.41 in 100 chance that you'll end up overdosing.
- Back in 1979, which was about 8 years after Nixon declared war on drugs, for every 100,000 heroin users in America, only 28 of them ended up overdosing when using heroin. And so, as a habitual heroin user in America, there was a 0.28% - or 0.28 in 100 - chance that you would have ended up overdosing when using heroin.
This means that back in 1979, you were more likely to die from causes such as diarrhea-related diseases, suicide, war, and AIDS than you were from the use of heroin. Yet some people and "conservative" media outlets still claim that the war on drugs is a success?! Spare me the bullshit please.
Sorry to get off topic like that with the heroin overdose statistics, but, I think these stats suggest that street drugs are in fact more potent, more pure, and more available now than they were before the war on drugs started. And this trend will continue to the point where you may see more and more dealers not cutting their product. And also, the availability will increase.
The consequences of this war may spiral out of control, and they may manifest themselves to a critical point where the streets of America may become like Mexico (extremely violent and thousands of innocent deaths every year on top of what you already see happening today). And if it ever gets to that point, God help us. It could end up causing another civil war perhaps. And America may end up becoming a totalitarian police state. Maybe George Orwell was brighter than most people give him credit for.
P.S. - Here's the link for where I got these stats from if interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o6Ytv6gaxxM#t=508