UK - The war on drugs and the shameful silence of our politicians

The Observer, Sunday 13 November 2011
Article history

With reader comments

In a parliamentary debate in the House of Commons, David Cameron said: "I ask the Labour government not to return to retribution and war on drugs. That has been tried and we all know that it does not work." That was in December 2002. And as a member of the home affairs select committee on drug misuse, Cameron supported the following recommendation: "That the government initiates a discussion within the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways – including the possibility of legalisation and regulation – to tackle the global drugs dilemma."

That too was in 2002.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/13/drugs-cameron

Money.

well written article.

Over the course of the last 40 years, America has spent $2.5tn on the drugs war. As the Global Commission makes clear, "in a time of fiscal austerity, we can no longer afford to maintain multibillion-dollar investments that have largely symbolic value".

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Quoted for truth, my jaw dropped when I say that figure.

Over the course of the last 40 years, America has spent $2.5tn on the drugs war. As the Global Commission makes clear, "in a time of fiscal austerity, we can no longer afford to maintain multibillion-dollar investments that have largely symbolic value".

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It seems like with the way the UK is trying to ban every single legal high possible, they seem to be running an even more thorough "war on drugs" (so far, the 2c's are legal in the us for example, except b and t7), trying to run down every possible analog and build a catch-all law to allow NO legal drugs. America may be spending more money on prohibition, but they aren't (SO FAR) as fervent about banning legal chemicals that dont have much attention.

Its all wrong though, and by adding the 2c's to the list of scheduled substances, for example, we are just working backwards. Not only will there be more analogs but the only thing to have changed is that you'll be taking a bit more of a risk when acquiring the substance. So, this example alone shows that prohibition does not work.