Could We Ever Consider Making All Drugs Legal?

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Sun, 2010-12-19 07:53

Can we imagine a Britain where all drugs are legal?
Asks BBC blogger Mark Easton.

Despite the home secretary comment on the new UK drug strategy -
"This Government does not believe that liberalisation and legalisation are the answer.
Decriminalisation fails to recognise the complexity of the problem."

Bob Ainsworth, who was drugs minister for 2 years, argues that the policy of prohibition has failed to reduce the harms that drugs cause and that it is time to make all drugs available legally within a strict system of regulation.

Ainsworth reminds critics that “Until 1916 you could buy cocaine and heroin over the counter in Harrods.”

But, at a time when the Dutch government is putting pressure on the café culture to stop selling cannabis to tourists it seems unlikely that the UK would even consider selling it over the counter much less anything 'harder' like heroin or cocaine.

Yet, as Mexico in particular demonstrates, the problem of drugs is not only with those who take them and the wider issues of supply and demand might well force a rethink very soon!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/

Sun, 2010-12-19 09:02

Insertponceyfre...

I know it's a serious subject, but I can't get rid of this image in my head of those marks and spencer advertisements

Sun, 2010-12-19 10:47

Mangone

You've set me off dreaming up Marks & Spencer creative consciousness adverts now insert. When your life is in a mess buy your dreams from M & S We have mixed the best for you Acid, heroin and cocaine too Our HIGHball cocktails keep you high high enough to touch the sky ;O)

Sun, 2010-12-19 10:53

Insertponceyfre...

this is not just a tab of acid...

Sun, 2010-12-19 11:02

Mangone

LOL.

Sun, 2010-12-19 17:17

camilla

Its the use and user that matters not the drug. We have to stop the under 25s from acquiring addictive behaviour to anything at all.

Sun, 2010-12-19 22:27

danrama

must be a british thing :P

Mon, 2010-12-20 18:48

Kahdai

it would stop crimes of people trying to get money for addiction as much and cannabis could be medicine for some people

"I will make sense with a few reads \^^/ "

Mon, 2010-12-20 20:23

WillSimpson

When i was sixteen, I was li\/ing in a grotty flat in a lo\/ely little council estate, in order to make a few extra quid I would sell ganja, I bought an ounce and had the intention of cutting it up into quarters and making a few quid, nothing big. I left the flat to go meet one of my mates and hadn't cut the ounce up yet, so I grabbed a kitchen knife on my way out and put it all in my pocket. Maybe an hour later I was walking down the high street when an unmarked car pulled me o\/er I didnt ha\/e time to run, and had no idea what they could want, they said they had had a report of a burglary by someone fitting my description, so they where going to search me, knowing I was fucked they asked what I had on me and told them. So I was arrested. once in the station, i was more worried about the knife I had on me, once in the inter\/iew room a small bag was presented with a tenner deal inside it. this was all being recorded and the officer ga\/e me a somewhat slimy smile and said do you admit that this amount was found on you, and that you are being cautioned for possesion of a controlled substance, yadda yadda. I willingly said yes, after all the actual amount I had was worth 5 times that and no mention of the knife, i was free to go with a caution. I always wonder if the arresting officer simply took his prize home and got stoned himself.

Until we feel our thoughts our thinking remains unfelt

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