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Legalizing Illegal Drugs
Switzerland has been trying innovative solutions to try and help alleviate a lot of the negative social and criminal aspects to drug addiction. One of the trials being tested was supervised heroin use, using clinically clean sources. They have a much lowered crime rate since the experiment was started. The issue is now going to a national referendum, and making heroin be a legal prescription drug is likely to pass.
The program has been criticized by the United States and the U.N. narcotics board, which said it would fuel drug abuse. But governments as far away as Australia are beginning or considering their own programs modeled on the system, which is credited with reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts. ed.z.: It should be legal anyway, just as a pain killer. And with that said, I don't like drugs, liquid, powdered, whatever, I like my mind clear all the time, but having a war on some drugs is completely nuts. It's beyond bonkers into harmful.
1) Right off the bat it just slap doesn't work, just the raw data shows that, all it does is keep prices ridiculously high and it actually CAUSES crime because of that, it certainly doesn't reduce it. Liquid drug booze prohibition showed us that, but we seem to have failed to learn from history....
2) People by and large around the planet going as far back in time as we have records for show a propensity for liking a buzz of some sort, it is apparently mostly hard coded DNA. Therefore, making it strictly illegal is cuckoo flat earth science
3) Making them legal even with a (cheap, not stupidly high like illegal prices) prescription would go a LONG way to reduce crime, knock the stuffings out of the armed and dangerous and violent drug gangs, would help to reduce the huge amount of official corruption that goes on (billions of dollars respects no particular employee or uniform or job title....they are all human, and the corruption and hypocrisy is rampant), *and* it would dramatically drop a big part of the big brother police state, all at once, stroke of the pen to make things a lot better.
We'd still have the same amount of very casual or daily or medium moderate or hard core addicts, but the cost to society would be a lot less. It is the lesser of evils approach by a long shot. It isn't perfect, but in the either/or situation it would be better than what we have now. The Swiss seem to understand this. We need to get rid of that darth vader "drug warrior" crap pronto, it's the pits. It's dangerous. This has been the classic example of the state creating (or making much worse) a problem in the first place so they can offer some "solution" to the problem.
I don't have any sort of official figures handy, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if 20% of the population teenage or older either uses or has used "illegal" drugs. The theory of the "drug war" is to lock up all them dangerous perps! One fifth or better of the population?? How crazy is that?
I was recently on jury duty, the DA was prosecuting a drug case, he asked the pool how many had a friend or relative who had a "drug problem", dang around one third to a half of the people's hands shot up. Now this shows how stupid this drug war is. One of the next questions was "anyone have a problem sitting on this case"? My hand went up of course. I got bounced from the pool, bye, sent home. A couple other people did as well, that's it. Now I was NOT trying to get out of serving on the jury, just they make you swear to be honest and stuff, so I was. Which now shows again that the "justice" system is stacked against a really fair deal for all concerned when they can cherry pick juries, it should just be random select, that's it, no questions, a peer group of the locals. I understand in some jurisdictions now it is almost impossible to get convictions anymore, people live in areas where a third of the humans living there have been run through the system and are convicted on parole, in prison or dang close, etc. Those areas would rather put up with the illegal nature of it then convict most every other person they know for "breaking the law". I forget the exact article I was reading about that, I think it was in the Baltimore area.