Last night, BBC2 showed a docudrama which looked at the possible affects of legalised drugs. Afterwards, there was a debate between Jeremy Paxman (the chair), Keith Hallawell (ex-'drugs czar' of UK), and some other folk that I cant remember the names of.
Unfortunately (for us), they seemed to concentrate their discussions around 'hard drugs', such as ecstacy, heroin, and cocaine, and spent very little time with cannabis - in fact, cannabis was only mentioned very briefly.
I had to laugh, as Keith Hallawell had the face to defend prohibition - even when he was reminded of the rapid growth in numbers of people who take drugs.
During the docudrama, we heard random opinion from pro- and anti-drug speakers.
The 'anti-drug' rhetoric spouts the same old crap as always - there'll be more crime, more family breakdown, society would suffer, etc, etc. They can't seem to accept the facts that are demonstrated in the ever growing number of countries that are legalising or decriminalising drugs, that drug related crime decreases.
They also discussed making heroin freely available to addicts via prescription.
The premise of the drama revolved around the story of a couple of girls who had died from taking an illegal pill whilst they were in a club that was licenced to sell legal drugs. The illegal pill was portrayed as being part of a batch of 'prototypes' that were being 'tested' by an ex-drug dealer, on behalf of a legitimate pharmaceutical company - a type of E, if you will. The point of this, showed how these companies would diversify into the 'recreational market' and how competition to provide 'the ultimate high', could create problems with mixing different products and strengths.
The pro-drug argument would say that it would be better for kids to be able to buy their Es from a licenced outlet, as content and regulation would ensure their safety. The anti-drug argument would say that there would be an explosion in the numbers of people taking drugs, as more people would be willing to give them a go, where they would have shyed away from doing something illegal before.
Anyways, I think that the debate was interesting.
Prohibition was shown for the failure that it is, and legalisation and regulation won the argument. There are some very real issues that need addressing, and clear guidlines need to be discussed - but, I think that the docudrama painted a slightly bleaker picture than we'd actually see....
Prohibition doesn't work - history proves it, and present-day societal problems only reinforce that statement.
It's time that the government woke up and smelled the coffee!
They are wasting over £400Million of our money, on something that creates more tax-fundable problems for us down the line.
Our schools and hospitals are grossly underfunded - surely, the revenue that could be raised from taxation in sales of drugs, plus the £400Million, plus the savings made from the fall in crime and prostition...would be better used to rebuild our education system (including better drug education in schools and the community) and medical facilities!
Here is the webpage from the programme...see what you think lol
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/if/default.stm
Right, well that took an hour and a half to write....because I am stoned as assholes, and had to keep going into open-mouthed trances...like that one, just then lmfaooooooooo
Res...
