Drug Free Australia gives the example that in 2007, one in nine children under the age of 18 in the United States lived with at least one parent who was addicted or addicted. 2.1 million children in the United States live with at least one parent who was addicted to or used illegal drugs. Some drugs harm their users in the long term, either by facilitating certain diseases (sugar, tobacco) or by making habitual users less able to function in society (alcohol, marijuana, heroin and many others). But there is another problem with this argument: in many older societies, the use of the most dangerous and powerful drugs has actually been regulated and restricted. Yes, people drank alcohol in ancient Athens, but hallucinogenic drugs were only used in certain rituals, under the supervision of priests and under strict social control;4 and the same is probably true for most other examples of drug use in traditional societies. Even the use of recreational drugs such as alcohol was probably much more under social supervision in these traditional societies, as everyone knew everyone in a particular social circle and people had to be careful not to harm their social status. The anonymity of modern society and its lack of social cohesion allow drug abuse in a way that would be much more difficult to achieve (and hide) in ancient societies. It all seemed so obvious to me. Prohibition had failed. Over the past decade, millions of Americans have been arrested and jailed for drugs in many of these cases. The government has spent tens of billions of dollars each year on anti-drug policies – not only to monitor and arrest people and possibly destroy their lives, but also on foreign operations in which forces attacked and destroyed people`s farms and ruined their livelihoods. In four decades, the price of the war on drugs was more than $1 trillion. If drugs were legal, it would be easier to identify and treat people who are addicted.
Substance abuse should be treated as a medical problem and not as a criminal justice issue. Addicts are driven underground when the purchase and possession of drugs is illegal. The legalization of drugs could be accompanied by more effective ways to rehabilitate and support drug addicts. If the cost of drugs increases, drug users are more likely to commit crimes in order to get money to buy expensive drugs. [152] The legalization of drugs would make drugs reasonably cheap. [141] In the 50 years since the first international convention of 1912 to restrict the use of opium, heroin and cocaine, the use of illicit drugs other than cannabis in the United States was consistently less than 0.5% of the population, with cannabis reaching 1 to 2% of the population between 1955 and 1965. [6] With the advent of the counterculture movement from the late 1950s, in which illicit drug use was promoted as mentally expanding and relatively harmless,[7] illicit drug use increased sharply. As illicit drug use peaked in the United States in the 1970s, the “Just Say No” campaign launched under the auspices of Nancy Reagan coincided with the recent decline in illicit drug use from 14.1 per cent in 1979 to 5.8 per cent in 1992, a 60 per cent decline. [8] Proponents of prohibition argue that some drugs should be illegal because they are harmful.
Drug Free Australia, for example, states: “The fact that illegal drugs are inherently harmful substances is confirmed by the nomenclature of the `harm reduction` movement. [1] The U.S. government has argued that illicit drugs are “much more deadly than alcohol,” stating, “Although alcohol is consumed by seven times more people than drugs, the number of deaths caused by these substances is not far off. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were 15,852 drug-related deaths in 2000; just under the 18,539 alcohol-related deaths. [49] The ratio of the harms of illegal opiates to legal alcohol and tobacco is similar in Australia, with 2 per cent deaths per cent of opioid use per year compared to 0.22 per cent deaths for alcohol (9 times less) per year and 0.3 per cent for tobacco (7 times less). [1] It is not surprising that the wider international impact of drug legalization has also gone largely unnoticed. Here too, a long series of questions remain unanswered. Given America`s longstanding role as the main sponsor of international drug control efforts, how would a decision to legalize drugs affect other countries? What would happen to the broad regime of multilateral conventions and bilateral agreements? Should every nation adhere to a new set of rules? If not, what would happen? Would more permissive countries suddenly be flooded with drugs and drug users, or would traffickers focus on countries where stricter restrictions would keep profits higher? This is not an abstract question. The Netherlands` liberal drug policy has attracted an influx of “drug tourists” from neighbouring countries, as has the city of Zurich after the now-abandoned experiment that led to the exploitation of an open drug market in the so-called “Needle Park”. And if it is conceivable that rich countries could mitigate the worst consequences of drug legalization through extensive public programs to prevent and treat drug addiction, what about the poorest countries? Many drug policies group all illicit drugs into one category.
Since drugs differ significantly in their effects, addictive potential, dosages, production methods and use, arguments in both directions could be considered inconsistent. [163] Decriminalizing drugs would allow governments to better regulate the access to and distribution of drugs. Alcohol and tobacco are legal in many societies, but still effectively regulated: they are not easily accessible to minors, they are not allowed in the workplace, etc. A society-wide discussion of the health effects of certain drugs (e.g., the harms of sugar) can lead to incentives to reduce the use of these legal drugs or to offer less harmful alternatives. It`s hard to imagine a society where we`ve legalized heroin or cocaine and let a big industry thrive around these drugs, creating a similar scenario to alcohol or tobacco for harder substances. But 20 or 30 years ago, it was hard to imagine a society where we would legalize marijuana and allow a big industry to thrive. But that`s exactly what legal pot leads to, with the marijuana industry playing a bigger role in drafting the laws and regulations that determine how legal pot will work. This is how legalization seems to work in America. In 2014, a number of high-ranking figures, including Sir Richard Branson, Sting and Michael Mansfield QC, signed a letter calling on the government to consider decriminalising cannabis.
Decriminalization is not the same as legalization, but an important step in that direction. Drug Aid Release organized the letter, saying users would have a better chance of escaping or avoiding addiction if they were not “trapped in the criminal justice system.” They added that evidence from other countries that have legalized drugs supports this view. The editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal, Dr. Fiona Godlee gave her personal support to Rolles` call for decriminalisation, and the arguments received special support from Sir Ian Gilmore, the former president of the Royal College of Physicians, who said we should treat drugs “as a health problem rather than criminalising people” and “this could significantly reduce crime and improve health”.
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