U.K. - The war on drugs isn't working – let's stop pretending it is

[S.J.B.]

The war on drugs isn't working – let's stop pretending it is
Ian Birrell
The Telegraph
April 30th, 2015

Outside of their families and friends, few tears will have been be shed for the eight heroin smugglers killed by firing squad in the early hours of yesterday morning. They may have claimed to have become reformed characters in jail, but they knew the Indonesian penalty for trafficking drugs. Yet the pantomime of death played out in the full glare of the global media reminded us of two things: first, the hideous barbarity of the death penalty; and second, the dreadful futility of the war on drugs.

The gang was caught attempting to smuggle heroin from Bali to Australia. Their seizure demonstrated that even the most draconian penalties are no deterrent to those seeking fortunes from the £200 billion drugs trade. Despite the death penalty, Bali is renowned as both a party place and an important Asian transit point for the distribution of narcotics, with traffickers slipping in and out of the island among its three million tourists.

Yet even as Indonesia upsets allies with its hardline stance on drugs, there is a shift going on around the world. Slowly but surely, countries are coming to their senses and realising that the prohibition of drugs is just as damaging and self-harming as the prohibition of alcohol once was in America, widely broken by otherwise law-abiding citizens and only serving to enrich crooks – as we all know from those old black-and-white gangster movies.

Like it or not, there is a massive market for drugs and many people enjoy them without coming to any harm, some even going on to become presidents and prime ministers. Just as with alcohol, there are casualties – although rather fewer with some widely used drugs than with booze. But as one country after another is starting to realise, the best way to protect users is not to create a lucrative black market controlled by lethal gangsters with little concern for the safety of customers. It is to do precisely the opposite: legalise and regulate the use of drugs.

This is a big step for any state to take, an admission that the absurd war first unleashed by President Richard Nixon has been both wrong and wasteful of resources. But in the past few days Ireland has become the latest nation to contemplate reform, appointing a minister with special responsibility to examine the relaxation of drug laws. “Someone who has an addiction issue should be dealt with through the health system and not the criminal justice system,” said the minister Aodhán Ríordáin, adding that the police would agree with him.

Read the full story here.

 

[StoneHappyMonday]

The notable thing about this article is its publication in the Daily Telegraph, the most Conservative (capital C) newspaper in the UK. I am struggling to remember them publishing such an article before.

 

[ro4eva]

It's time we all - regardless of political compass or affiliation - accept the unmistakable facts of this unjust and hypocritical victimization of non-violent, otherwise law-abiding individuals.

It's time we all stop grasping at the straws of deniability - dragging society from transcending such a shameful era of inexcusable oppression towards a minority group of people that victimized no one, yet have been treated as such by impostors who betrayed the public's trust by protecting solely themselves, and serving only their self interests. Impostors who have made a mockery of the badge and uniform which will never be forgotten.

It's time to end this, before it ends us.

 

[garyh]

I have noticed that almost every week now there is articles about weed etc in Uk papers and not always negative.

I hope the tide is finally changing and the UK adopts more liberal views when the proof is there of the positive benefits..