Should drugs, ALL drugs be available and free for anyone who wants them?................. ( Archived) (161)

Legal equals less consumption? What, like alcohol?

I'm not saying I disagree with the decriminalisation of certain drugs, but I don't believe it will result in less use.

Potheads are less likely to put up a fight. Meth heads are more likely to steal, cheat and contract Hep C, because some use needles. There are several in my area that are my age and are dealing w/ Hep C right now. They have no clue as to how it can ruin your body and you mind. By the time they try to get off of it the damage is already done.

Some may think that pot kills brain cells, but Meth turns you into a walking corpse like those film reels about WWII, when the ally's took the concentration camps. Those people stumbling around, naked and stick skinny - that is what a methhead almost looks like. Only they are a little crazier looking.

Many would disagree with you.
Wished I had the articles writen about this subject.

10 Reasons to legalise all drugs
comment from Transform: the campaign for effective drug policy


1 Address the real issues
For too long policy makers have used prohibition as a smoke screen to avoid addressing the social and economic factors that lead people to use drugs. Most illegal and legal drug use is recreational. Poverty and despair are at the root of most problematic drug use and it is only by addressing these underlying causes that we can hope to significantly decrease the number of problematic users.

2 Eliminate the criminal market place
The market for drugs is demand-led and millions of people demand illegal drugs. Making the production, supply and use of some drugs illegal creates a vacuum into which organised crime moves. The profits are worth billions of pounds. Legalisation forces organised crime from the drugs trade, starves them of income and enables us to regulate and control the market (i.e. prescription, licensing, laws on sales to minors, advertising regulations etc.)

3 Massively reduce crime
The price of illegal drugs is determined by a demand-led, unregulated market. Using illegal drugs is very expensive. This means that some dependent users resort to stealing to raise funds (accounting for 50% of UK property crime - estimated at £2 billion a year). Most of the violence associated with illegal drug dealing is caused by its illegality

Legalisation would enable us to regulate the market, determine a much lower price and remove users need to raise funds through crime. Our legal system would be freed up and our prison population dramatically reduced, saving billions. Because of the low price, cigarette smokers do not have to steal to support their habits. There is also no violence associated with the legal tobacco market.



4 Drug users are a majority
Recent research shows that nearly half of all 15-16 year olds have used an illegal drug. Up to one and a half million people use ecstasy every weekend. Amongst young people, illegal drug use is seen as normal. Intensifying the 'war on drugs' is not reducing demand. In Holland, where cannabis laws are far less harsh, drug usage is amongst the lowest in Europe.

Legalisation accepts that drug use is normal and that it is a social issue, not a criminal justice one. How we deal with it is up to all of us to decide.

In 1970 there were 9000 convictions or cautions for drug offences and 15% of young people had used an illegal drug. In 1995 the figures were 94 000 and 45%. Prohibition doesn't work.

5 Provide access to truthful information and education
A wealth of disinformation about drugs and drug use is given to us by ignorant and prejudiced policy-makers and media who peddle myths upon lies for their own ends. This creates many of the risks and dangers associated with drug use.

Legalisation would help us to disseminate open, honest and truthful information to users and non-users to help them to make decisions about whether and how to use. We could begin research again on presently illicit drugs to discover all their uses and effects - both positive and negative.

i think it is a bit of a 'swings and roundabouts' thing- legalisation may well lead to more people taking drugs, but the amount of crime involved in procuring the money to buy drugs would plummet- how much police time and money is spent on the war against drugs?? that could be put to use to help those that really want to get off them.
alcohol is a much more dangerous drug that most of us use- i believe it causes much more violence and death than drugs, even hard drugs- much more car accidents and ciolent deaths are caused by alcohol than by drug use ( my own beliefs and experiencs as a nurse, please don't ask for statistics)

I checked with Google had not yet thought of youtube.