Legalization Of Cocaine Analysis
Editorial: Cocaine Legalization 4/26/02
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org, 4/26/02
Earlier this week, a member of the British Parliament made a very bold statement. Jenny Tonge, a prominent member of the Liberal Democrat party, called for the legalization of cocaine.
Even in the UK, where the drug policy debate has advanced dramatically further than in most places, Tonge's statement is cutting edge, going further than the already forward-looking position of the party itself. The Liberal Democrats have called for legalization of marijuana but mere decriminalization of possession for other drugs.
By US standards, Tonge's comments come across as even bolder, of course. A measure of that is the fact that even in …show more content…
An individual seated at my table told me that he agreed with me about marijuana legalization, strongly in fact, as well as progressive drug policies overall, but considered drugs like heroin and cocaine to be too dangerous to allow widespread, legal sales. My point that sales are already widespread under prohibition and vastly more hazardous than they would be under a legal distribution regime didn't sway him. He recounted a wedding he had attended where the groom was clearly under cocaine's influence, causing a highly uncomfortable and unfortunate situation for all involved.
It certainly sounds like a disturbing experience. Addiction isn't pretty, and no one involved in drug policy reform should forget that. But it's not hard to imagine a turn of events at the wedding that would have been even worse. It would have been worse if the groom had died. The groom could have unknowingly obtained a tainted batch and gotten poisoned, or too pure a batch and had an overdose. Clearly this would have been even …show more content…
This cannot be said of Tonge, though, who recently toured Colombia, where she spoke with villagers terrorized by the drug wars. Far from being out of touch, our movement draws on the real-world experiences of allies from the mountains of the Andes to the hospitals and the street corners of our cities here in the US. Over the next year or so, DRCNet, in partnership with a range of organizations in this country and others, is organizing a series of anti-prohibition conferences in different parts of the world that will elevate those authentic voices to relate the terrible impact of prohibition and the drug war on their
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org, 4/26/02
Earlier this week, a member of the British Parliament made a very bold statement. Jenny Tonge, a prominent member of the Liberal Democrat party, called for the legalization of cocaine.
Even in the UK, where the drug policy debate has advanced dramatically further than in most places, Tonge's statement is cutting edge, going further than the already forward-looking position of the party itself. The Liberal Democrats have called for legalization of marijuana but mere decriminalization of possession for other drugs.
By US standards, Tonge's comments come across as even bolder, of course. A measure of that is the fact that even in …show more content…
An individual seated at my table told me that he agreed with me about marijuana legalization, strongly in fact, as well as progressive drug policies overall, but considered drugs like heroin and cocaine to be too dangerous to allow widespread, legal sales. My point that sales are already widespread under prohibition and vastly more hazardous than they would be under a legal distribution regime didn't sway him. He recounted a wedding he had attended where the groom was clearly under cocaine's influence, causing a highly uncomfortable and unfortunate situation for all involved.
It certainly sounds like a disturbing experience. Addiction isn't pretty, and no one involved in drug policy reform should forget that. But it's not hard to imagine a turn of events at the wedding that would have been even worse. It would have been worse if the groom had died. The groom could have unknowingly obtained a tainted batch and gotten poisoned, or too pure a batch and had an overdose. Clearly this would have been even …show more content…
This cannot be said of Tonge, though, who recently toured Colombia, where she spoke with villagers terrorized by the drug wars. Far from being out of touch, our movement draws on the real-world experiences of allies from the mountains of the Andes to the hospitals and the street corners of our cities here in the US. Over the next year or so, DRCNet, in partnership with a range of organizations in this country and others, is organizing a series of anti-prohibition conferences in different parts of the world that will elevate those authentic voices to relate the terrible impact of prohibition and the drug war on their