UK - Why Legalisation of Drugs Won't Work

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edgarshade

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Huffington Post


Mandy Saligari
Executive Director, Founder and Clinical Director, Charter Day Care, Charter Residential and Charter Adolescents

Posted: 17/12/2012 13:56

With reader comments

On Friday I was invited to comment on BBC1 TV News following Nick Clegg's announcement on drug law reform. I of course accepted. His suggestion is that we decriminalize certain drugs and thereby free up resources to focus on treating addiction as an illness instead of as a crime. I couldn't agree more with his intention, it is his method I wholeheartedly challenge.

Earlier in the week David Cameron had announced his position on the subject, which is to promote drug treatment, mentoring, and financial consequences for those on benefits who refuse treatment. On this subject, my vote is with Cameron.

I think to decriminalize drugs is a massive mistake, and one that is impossible to come back from. It focuses at the wrong end of the problem and will create a culture of drug abuse that the next generation will pay for with their lives.

Please do not be so naive as to believe that in decriminalizing certain drugs you will be able to regulate them. All it will do is endorse the market place and generate growth in the drug industry, creating opportunity for low cost and black market goods, synthetic evolutions and copies.
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More...
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mandy-saligari/drugs-legalisation-wont-work_b_2315148.html
 
Drug legalization would off-set the entire world. To me, it would be like kicking a jig-saw puzzle that is getting close to its finish.


I can neither deny it nor support it. All I know is that the human race is not yet ready.
 
Legalising outright like alcohol is STUPID. FIRST we need to decriminise them and work up. People cannot handle legal alcohol as it is. Look in the UK at Mephedrone. Some of us are smart others aren't.

Decriminising WILL WORK!!!!!!!!!! you may not have control over what you get but we can have test places and moreharm reduction
 
even if it doesn't "work" it's the right thing to do being in a "free" society and all
 
Tony Williams said:
Legalising outright like alcohol is STUPID. FIRST we need to decriminise them and work up. People cannot handle legal alcohol as it is. Look in the UK at Mephedrone. Some of us are smart others aren't.

Decriminising WILL WORK!!!!!!!!!! you may not have control over what you get but we can have test places and moreharm reduction
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Alcohol is more than "legalised". It is actually pushed and promoted in front of other products. When I go into my local Mini-Tesco all 80% of the floor space by the window is promoting alcoholic products. There are about five isles and the first two by the checkouts are taken up entirely by alcoholic products. What is going on there? Same story in most fuel garages.

The way I see it the over-promotion of alcohol is a side-effect of the continuing prohibition of all other psychoactive drugs.

Though I would welcome decriminalisation, a fully regulated supply chain always going to be better. Products can be pure, labelled and supplied in controlled venues. If I had a choice of taking paracetamol from my local Boots store or from some guy in a night club selling pills made in a grubby shack in the middle of a Bangladesh forest, transported to the UK up someone's arse with God-knows-what in it at who-knows dosage..... I know which one I would pick.
 
edgarshade said:
Alcohol is more than "legalised". It is actually pushed and promoted in front of other products. When I go into my local Mini-Tesco all 80% of the floor space by the window is promoting alcoholic products. There are about five isles and the first two by the checkouts are taken up entirely by alcoholic products. What is going on there? Same story in most fuel garages.

The way I see it the over-promotion of alcohol is a side-effect of the continuing prohibition of all other psychoactive drugs.

Though I would welcome decriminalisation, a fully regulated supply chain always going to be better. Products can be pure, labelled and supplied in controlled venues. If I had a choice of taking paracetamol from my local Boots store or from some guy in a night club selling pills made in a grubby shack in the middle of a Bangladesh forest, transported to the UK up someone's arse with God-knows-what in it at who-knows dosage..... I know which one I would pick.
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Dude I agree I dont drink. I hate the way alcohol is so accepted but if drugs were legal, althought they'd be clean and money made would be gov/tax'ed. there'd be MORE drug related problems. Alcohol is one drug and people mix drinks tothe end. When Meph was legal it was likpeople with 0 drug knowledge would use.

Decriminionising is the best idea with night club pill checking places, heroin shooting gals. I think for medical use ALL drugs shuldbe legal - diamorphine scripts, etc

Back to Alcohol I would tighten it and refer it to a drug.
 
Tony Williams said:
Dude I agree I dont drink. I hate the way alcohol is so accepted but if drugs were legal, althought they'd be clean and money made would be gov/tax'ed. there'd be MORE drug related problems. Alcohol is one drug and people mix drinks tothe end. When Meph was legal it was likpeople with 0 drug knowledge would use.

Decriminionising is the best idea with night club pill checking places, heroin shooting gals. I think for medical use ALL drugs shuldbe legal - diamorphine scripts, etc

Back to Alcohol I would tighten it and refer it to a drug.
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my fantasy for a world with legalised drugs is that there would be courses wich you have to attend to receive a users licence similar to how a drivers licence is issued. driving a car is a risk to your self and others and it does harm the health of the people (and planet) inhaling its fumes, and it does take hundreds of thousands of lives every year so it isn't even really diffrent.
 
Tony Williams said:
When Meph was legal it was likpeople with 0 drug knowledge would use.
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Methedrone only came to fill the void left by the lack of decent MDMA. Not only was meth legal, it was also completely unregulated. If drugs were legalised I expect the most harmful drugs would only be available on prescription for maintenance treatment. Demand for the most dangerous drugs would gradually evaporate as the existing users either recover or die (from old age) and new users only order safe, tested, less addictive drugs from the "recommended drugs" catalogue.
 
Drug education (not propaganda) should be taught through-out school.

You should be able to get a license, much like a driving license, after completing an education course on drugs and drug safety after reaching a certain age.

You should then be able to use this card to buy certain amounts of drugs.

People who don't believe in decriminalisation / legalisation are ignoring the evidence.

Edit: Oh wow didn't read wayabs post.. Hear hear!
 
Renz Envy said:
Drug legalization would off-set the entire world. To me, it would be like kicking a jig-saw puzzle that is getting close to its finish.

I can neither deny it nor support it. All I know is that the human race is not yet ready.
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Couldn't you say the same thing about abortion, no?

The human race is supposedly not ready for voluntary euthanasia (AKA assisted suicide via barbiturate OD) and not ready for giving us mere mortals a bit more latitude over how we live our lives.

Dare I say, is the human race really mature enough to accept the concept of abortion? I can't say I'm entirely sure...and please, oh please don't call me a misogynist. Do you support a ban on personal firearms? Most pro-choicers think that gun control is a good thing. Well then, let's just say that, in a nutshell, gun control is the concept that a 100lb woman should be able to fist fight a 200lb rapist - that's about as misogynist as you can get!!!
 
At frist we really do not need to legalise drugs, what we need is to "de-penalise" their use & supply. With renewed energy & focus law enforcement can then concentrate on Harm Reduction, removing dodgy batches from the street, stopping shipments of suspicious compounds & adertising the dangers of certain "batches".

Nobody wants ANY illegal drug other perhaps than weed made for sale & advertised. There is already an enormous network of clandestine production & supply, which could be gradually whittled away by legal but no less clandestine supply so as to remove profit making by criminal gangs. But whilst that process occurs, all users & small scale suppliers & traffickers should be ignored by the law. Gradually, alternative, legal suppliers of cut-price/high-quality drugs would fill the gap, utilizing the internet to sell their wares in much the same way as RC suppliers do now. There would probably be a little trickle down where legal supplys might be hi-jacked & sold on for small profit by criminals, but that shit happens with booze, fags, DVD's, Handbags etc they just less likely cause fatalities when something goes wrong.

The point being that, with some clever thinking & alot of patience, the present situation might be turned around. All we need now is some clever, patient people in charge... It's all starting to sound like a pipe dream now Lol 8(
 
I disagree.. we need to legalise drugs to control their quality. No more dodgy adulterants.. no more accidental overdoses where new batch is significantly more pure than last batch.. etc, etc..
 
Purity, dosage, safe use & supply is not going to come overnight. Instant legalisation is imo impossible from the present, powerfully prohibitionist standpoint. These fuckers in power will not legalise drugs for us, but if we can convince them that drugs can be used with greater or equal safety than legal drugs & pharmacueticals & that once the illegal supply route had been irradicated, vast, VAST profits could be made, then perhaps they might slowly come round.

I'm just trying to find some way to move between the complete illegality of the present day to a future where drugs would be supplied by reputable, government regulated & taxed companies but NOT avaible to the average booze-head in the street, bcause I suspect such a move would be counterproductive. Drugs should be available to those who can use them safely, made available safely but should not be seen as "the new Booze" or in the case of weed, "the new tobacco" etc etc

If we see drugs as legal, widely available & commonly accepted in normal society as the presnt pair of booze & tobacco we will lose control of them in the same way as we have with those two legal drugs & greater harm may well ensue.

The primary reason to consider legalising all drugs is to reduce the harm brought by their use. I suspect complete freedom with ALL drugs would not reduce harm. If across-the-board legalisation appeared overnight & everyone just got one fine & nothing went wrong (no huge spike in drugs-related fatalitys or complete loss of social cohesion) I'd happilly stand up & be corrected :)
 
The illegal supply of drugs won't stop until legalisation.. what do you think they've been trying to do all these years?

Read mine (and wayabs ;)) post about the license thing.. educate, learn, pass the course, pass the tests (psychoanalysis might have to be involved), gain a license that allows you to buy a set amount of drugs.. this is what should be done, imo.

I suspect, at first, things might get a little worse.. but it wont stay that way.

People that want to take drugs will take drugs.. they're not hard to come by.. a lot of the time children find it easier to get illegal drugs than alcohol because of the age restrictions on it.. I really don't think that legalising drugs will cause that much of an increase in drug use.

Plus.. the government would make money, rather than throw it away as they are currently doing.

If we see drugs as legal, widely available & commonly accepted in normal society as the presnt pair of booze & tobacco we will lose control of them in the same way as we have with those two legal drugs & greater harm may well ensue.
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Peoples opinions aren't going to change overnight. There are plenty of legal drugs making the headlines and the general opinion on them seems to be the same as the illegal ones.. like i said.. people that want to take drugs already do.
 
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Flynnal said:
Couldn't you say the same thing about abortion, no?

The human race is supposedly not ready for voluntary euthanasia (AKA assisted suicide via barbiturate OD) and not ready for giving us mere mortals a bit more latitude over how we live our lives.

Dare I say, is the human race really mature enough to accept the concept of abortion? I can't say I'm entirely sure...and please, oh please don't call me a misogynist. Do you support a ban on personal firearms? Most pro-choicers think that gun control is a good thing. Well then, let's just say that, in a nutshell, gun control is the concept that a 100lb woman should be able to fist fight a 200lb rapist - that's about as misogynist as you can get!!!
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Abortion is quite different from addiction.
I believe you are seeking a moral debate, which I appreciate, however I am not. I do not have an opinion on abortion or fire arms as I am no expert on either subject.

I believe addiction is an involuntary adaptive behavior in which is being slowly chiseled out of our gene pool. We are not yet ready for drug decriminalization, not because we cannot handle the concept, but because the human race would be consumed by it. I cannot say psychadelic mushrooms are the end of the world, however fully accessible/legal/unregulated heroin(Other strong opiates) or meth(Other addictive-compulsive stimulants) would not bode well for anyone except drug addicts.

I did not mean for my devil's advocate approach on drug laws to be mistaken as sexist... In my defense I'm probably the least sexist person one could meet.
 
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People need to stop this black and white approach. There are plenty of options between 'sell and advertise like alcohol' and 'send people to jail for possession,' and every drug is going to land at a different point on that scale. We just need to slowly shift away from prohibition and experiment till we figure out what works best with different drugs. Weed I think could easily be sold openly the way alcohol is (with a strict ban on advertising), while I'm not sure whether I'd ever be comfortable with the legalization of methamphetamine, because the harm it causes is inherent to the drug and not a side effect of prohibition and I just don't see how legalization would improve the situation. Heroin, on the other hand, has most of it's damage stem from prohibition and a lack of care, while I wouldn't want to see it sold openly to all and sundry, I think a fairly open maintenance system where addicts can drop into a site and be injected by a nurse or offered an XR pill would make sense and result in a rapid decrease in addicts over a generation or two. And so on and so forth. Of course we'll never know until we try, but what we need is a slow relaxation of prohibition combined with intense study and experimentation (and regulation to ensure that the industry isn't overrun by capitalist profit seeking like alcohol and tobacco) until we hit on the solution which causes the least harm for the most gain with each drug.
 
Money saved / made could be spent on better care and treatment for addicts.

Removing the taboo (by decriminalising / legalising) would make it more likely for addicts to seek help. Portugal, anyone?
 
Crankinit said:
People need to stop this black and white approach. There are plenty of options between 'sell and advertise like alcohol' and 'send people to jail for possession,' and every drug is going to land at a different point on that scale. We just need to slowly shift away from prohibition and experiment till we figure out what works best with different drugs. Weed I think could easily be sold openly the way alcohol is (with a strict ban on advertising), while I'm not sure whether I'd ever be comfortable with the legalization of methamphetamine, because the harm it causes is inherent to the drug and not a side effect of prohibition and I just don't see how legalization would improve the situation. Heroin, on the other hand, has most of it's damage stem from prohibition and a lack of care, while I wouldn't want to see it sold openly to all and sundry, I think a fairly open maintenance system where addicts can drop into a site and be injected by a nurse or offered an XR pill would make sense and result in a rapid decrease in addicts over a generation or two. And so on and so forth. Of course we'll never know until we try, but what we need is a slow relaxation of prohibition combined with intense study and experimentation (and regulation to ensure that the industry isn't overrun by capitalist profit seeking like alcohol and tobacco) until we hit on the solution which causes the least harm for the most gain with each drug.
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For the sake of time, I agree.

Less addictive Class A/Schedule 1 drugs such as MDMA, LSD or DMT should be re-admitted to the market and assigned a pharmacological use.

As for your analysis of heroin and meth, it is not uncommon for tweakers and junkies to miss their similarities. Both drugs are highly addictive and a large portion of the damage is due to poor dosing, purity and route of administration. HOWEVER, if said damage is avoidable through professional care, why is it not available without a professional? As a drug addict, wouldn't it be wise to be the professional?
 
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