| GhaudePhaede010 said: "Legalising recreational drugs has two major positive effects. It makes them cheap, which eliminates most of the social problems associated with drug addiction, and it makes them clean, which eliminates many of the health risks." Like with cigarettes? ROFL sometimes you people kill me. Cigarettes are safer? Hahahahaha. Your evidence of heroine in the U.K is ancedotal for numerous reasons that are probably not worth going into The main one being the lack of true independent research. While organized crime was very high in the 1920's do not forget about thee explosion of crime in the 60's 70's and early to mid 80's. It was not organized crime, but it was way worse than the crime rates of the 1920's. Especially the seventies. The 20's are glamorized by people looking to make money because there are true heroes and villians. Have you not seen the number of addicts to opiate based drugs go ape-shit in the past few years? Most of them are taking legal drugs. Some drugs used to detox are just as addictive as the street drug they were detoxing from. There is no clear problem other than poor decision making. |
I don't understand why you're bringing up cigarettes. Tobacco has never been illegal so there is absolutely no parallel. The point I was making is that most problems linked to drug addiction are caused by criminalisation. Forcing products into the black market inflates prices, which leads to people stealing to support their habit. An ounce of raw opium costs pence on the streets of Afghanistan, but processed into heroin will sells for hundreds of pounds on the streets of the UK. Being illegal also means that drugs get cut with other substances (which may or may not be harmful) and this makes it more difficult for drug users to judge an appropriate dose. It is actually rather difficult to unintentionally overdose on pure heroin if you know what you're doing.
And you're comment on rising crime in the '70s is the perfect illustration of my argument. The rise in crime was directly related to growth in the illegal drugs trade. It would never have happened if recreational drugs were not prohibited, because the trade would not be controlled by criminals.
The rise in addiction to prescription drugs is completely irrelevant because it does not have the myriad social problems associated with it that drugs like crack and heroin do. The reason is because the supply is cheap and clean. Sure, addiction is still a problem, but it is completely dwarfed by associated problems that come with criminalisation.
Here's a link to an article from The Guardian a few years back, which sums up my case:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0,,506559,00.html
And an article on the success of liberal drugs policy in Zurich, from The Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/heroin-the-solution-480734.html
