Drugs? What way forward?

[Stramash]

Some great points from everyone thanks.

To put things in some sort of 'harm' context, especially in relation to the legal drugs of alcohol and tobacco, here is a list of UK drug deaths for 2006.

Remember, if you sit and say drugs are evil , then go out for a drink, or if you smoke cigarettes, thne you are a hypocrite, as these 2 substances are the worst drugs available!!

Alcohol - 8,758

Heroin/morphine ? 713

Cocaine 190

Methadone ? 241

All Amphetamines ? 92

Mdma/ecstasy - 48

Paracetomol and compounds ? 309

GHB 7

All benzodiazepines ? 177

Temazepam 42

Diazepam 89

Nitrazepam 8

Zopiclone/ Zolpidem ? 39

Barbiturates - 17

All antidepressants ? 336

Tobacco (approximately) 46,000

I have seen similar numbers to these before mate. But theres one glaring problem with this comparison. Only fags and alcohol are available at every corner store and are widely used. Imagine if all the others were marketed and sold in the same way. Then there would be a real comparison here. Agree totally that our system laws hypocritical and madness to allow usage and make obscene piles of tax cash from tobacco and alcohol, while making other drugs illegal and clogging up the system. On the other hand, i cant yet see any clear or simple answer to the problem. Perhaps it is not a legal issue at all, but rather a society attitude and education issue. But one thing that continues to perpetuate it all (like so many other harmful things in our world) is the core issue of money and greed.

Agree totally Marc, which is why I started the debate in first place. There is NO such thing as a perfect drugs policy, nothing thayt will keep everyone happy. But the reason I quoted the Swiss and Portuguese examples was to show that some for of regulation and control can work.

It's not a case of making things freely available; it's more a case of identifying those with addiction problems (not those who just want some drugs!!) and supplying them through proper clinics. A look at the figures for Switzerland shows this can work. Crime goes down (a huge percentage of crime is aqquisitive crime to pay for drugs) numbers of addicts goes down, deaths go down (better quality etc) and assosciated medical problems such as HIV or hepatitis goes down. Drops in those figures then releases a lot of funds that were spent on policing and medical issues to then go into tretament.

I agree totally that education must play a huge part too; it is one of the pillars of the systems discussed, with an aim of reducing the numbers of new addicts (which they have achieved)

And also, removing these drugs from the sphere of criminality also reduces the money made by criminal gangs, in turn reducing the activities they can pursue.

So, not perfect by any means, but certainly a step in the right direction. Due to the UN single convention, it is unlikely we will see anything as drastic as legalisation (that would create a chaotic free for all) but certainly decriminilisation of some of the 'softer' substances, coupled with a restricted and regulated government supply of some more addicitive substances seems a sensible way forward.

So we would never see any of these substances freely available or marketed.

Our current problems with alcohol and tobacco come on the back of decades of marketing, glamourisation and social acceptability (plus a succession of passive governments worldwide happy to see billions pour into their coffers)

I do not believe that even with decriminalisation and/or regualtion, those levels of social acceptability would ever be repeated.

Sathorn - The figures do not include more arbitrary deaths such as being hit by car while drunk. Causes of death are either directly attributable, or through assosciated diseases such as lung cancer or cirrhosis where a substance can be identified as the primary cause of that disease.

With some of the illegal substances, there is sometimes a secdondary cause; so heroin may be the primary cause of an overdose, but the victim was also on crack; as far as I am aware from reading the Statistics Office reports, they only count what they see as the primary cause whhen compiling the figures or they would get double results.