Legalization Of Illegal Drugs
Controlled Legalization of Illegal Drugs
In this piece I plan to look at drug legalisation and how it would be a vastly positive thing around the world. Drugs are a sensitive subject. This is not a piece in support of taking drugs, nor is it an essay on the wonders of marijuana consumption. Instead it is simply a look at how much more stable and controlled our drug culture and general way of life would be if drugs were legalised. I will look at first of all the reasons why drug prohibition has failed and then at the thriving alternative that other countries have found: controlled legalisation. There are simply no positive reasons to criminalise any illegal drugs and I plan to show you why.
The fact that keeping the same laws on drugs won’t change anything is a pretty basic concept. To put it another way, people already take drugs and if we don’t change anything people will continue to take drugs, get addicted and potentially commit any crime from petty thievery to murder. That may seem an exaggeration, but a report back in 2003 from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that 50% of people in custody and awaiting trial admitted they were dependent on a drug. Given that the Scottish Social Attitudes survey of 2009 found an increase of 6% from 2001 (41% to 47%) in Scottish adults close to someone who has used illegal drugs, it would be safe to assume this figure has also risen. So, with it now established that people take drugs despite it being against the law, we need to try and make drug consumption more structured, more stable and ultimately safer. As production is illegal, the drug trade lacks all health and safety restraints put on other legitimate markets such as quality control and warning labels. Therefore if someone decides they want to sample cannabis, get their weekly heroin fix or even buy some cocaine for a night in as if it were a box of Pringles, they have almost literally no idea what they are buying from a drug dealer. The value is so high that drugs
In this piece I plan to look at drug legalisation and how it would be a vastly positive thing around the world. Drugs are a sensitive subject. This is not a piece in support of taking drugs, nor is it an essay on the wonders of marijuana consumption. Instead it is simply a look at how much more stable and controlled our drug culture and general way of life would be if drugs were legalised. I will look at first of all the reasons why drug prohibition has failed and then at the thriving alternative that other countries have found: controlled legalisation. There are simply no positive reasons to criminalise any illegal drugs and I plan to show you why.
The fact that keeping the same laws on drugs won’t change anything is a pretty basic concept. To put it another way, people already take drugs and if we don’t change anything people will continue to take drugs, get addicted and potentially commit any crime from petty thievery to murder. That may seem an exaggeration, but a report back in 2003 from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that 50% of people in custody and awaiting trial admitted they were dependent on a drug. Given that the Scottish Social Attitudes survey of 2009 found an increase of 6% from 2001 (41% to 47%) in Scottish adults close to someone who has used illegal drugs, it would be safe to assume this figure has also risen. So, with it now established that people take drugs despite it being against the law, we need to try and make drug consumption more structured, more stable and ultimately safer. As production is illegal, the drug trade lacks all health and safety restraints put on other legitimate markets such as quality control and warning labels. Therefore if someone decides they want to sample cannabis, get their weekly heroin fix or even buy some cocaine for a night in as if it were a box of Pringles, they have almost literally no idea what they are buying from a drug dealer. The value is so high that drugs