Prohibition kills another 7

[Rum]

I was mentally incapacitated in my mid 20s as a result of using too much LSD and dope and I have a few old mates who never really got to grips with the so called real world after messing a bit too freely with psychedelics.

I'm glad you can admit your detachment from reality.

We all have bias based on our own experiences. You are a wonderful example..for example.

[Clinton Huxley]

What's wrong with a packet of digestives and a nice cup of tea?

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

What's wrong with a packet of digestives and a nice cup of tea?

Something is missing...

[Jason]

I was mentally incapacitated in my mid 20s as a result of using too much LSD and dope and I have a few old mates who never really got to grips with the so called real world after messing a bit too freely with psychedelics.

I'm glad you can admit your detachment from reality.

Leaving aside things like gravity, reality is a socially subjective concept. So every time you deviate from the norms of perception and conception for your society you've departed from 'reality'. That is, of course, why people do drugs. Drink a few pints and you've subtly changed your reality. Drink a few more and you've changed it further still. Sometimes people diverge from reality so far they become divorced from physical realities, like gravity, until it rushes back at them as they fall to the ground.

Your society is different from mine. My reality is different from yours. Perhaps only slightly, but travel to an entirely different culture and you'll see what I mean. Try Egypt, Iran, Syria, Turkmenistan, or Somalia.

[Cormac]

An ex girlfriend of mine was murdered in a cocaine fuelled rage by her "boyfriend".


I am even more in favour of decriminalisation and regulation.

Prohibition is not preventing anyone from taking drugs, but it does create a vast market for criminal scum to spread criminality and violence throughout society. Criminalisation causes society to have to spend enormous resources policing drug users and dealers. We could cut all that out by decriminalisation, and direct those resources instead to more effective social use, such as services to help get drug users clean and to discourse their use.

Also, through provision of pharmaceutical grade drugs, we could significantly cut the harm caused by drug use.

Something I read a while back (I'm paraphrasing):

We don't just spend enormous resources fighting the War on Drugs. We actively subsidise the dealers and traffickers with taxpayer money. Every pound we spend increases the risk of incarceration, violence and death for those in the trade. Increased risk means increased price, otherwise they wouldn't bother. The net result is more money for dealers and traffickers.

Precisely.