dancingboygg
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2000
- Messages
- 23
In today's Australian Financial Review there's an extract from an article in The Economist entitled;
"A legal market is the best way to control drugs"
Thought some Blulighter's might be interested to read it. Hope this is the right forum to post it in
The article reads;
"And how, if drugs were legal, might they be distributed? The thought of heroin on supermarket shelves understandably adds to the terror of the prospect.
Just as legal drugs are available through different channels - caffeine from any cafe, alcohol with proof of age, Prozac on prescription - so drugs that are now illegal might be distributed in different ways, based on knowledge about their potential for harm.
Moreover, different coutries should experiment with different solutions: many are now bound by a UN convention that hampers even the most modest moves towards liberalisation.
To legalise will not be easy. Drug-taking entails risks, and societies are increasingly risk-averse. But the role of government should be to prevent the most chaotic drug-users from harming others and to regulate drug markets to ensure minimum quality and safe distribution.
The first task is hard if law enforcers are preoccupied with stopping all drug use; the second, impossible while drugs are illegal. A legal market is the best guarantee that drug-taking will be no more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. And, just as countries rightly tolerate those two vices, so they should tolerate those who sell and take drugs."
"A legal market is the best way to control drugs"
Thought some Blulighter's might be interested to read it. Hope this is the right forum to post it in
The article reads;
"And how, if drugs were legal, might they be distributed? The thought of heroin on supermarket shelves understandably adds to the terror of the prospect.
Just as legal drugs are available through different channels - caffeine from any cafe, alcohol with proof of age, Prozac on prescription - so drugs that are now illegal might be distributed in different ways, based on knowledge about their potential for harm.
Moreover, different coutries should experiment with different solutions: many are now bound by a UN convention that hampers even the most modest moves towards liberalisation.
To legalise will not be easy. Drug-taking entails risks, and societies are increasingly risk-averse. But the role of government should be to prevent the most chaotic drug-users from harming others and to regulate drug markets to ensure minimum quality and safe distribution.
The first task is hard if law enforcers are preoccupied with stopping all drug use; the second, impossible while drugs are illegal. A legal market is the best guarantee that drug-taking will be no more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. And, just as countries rightly tolerate those two vices, so they should tolerate those who sell and take drugs."
