Pubdate: Mon, 12 Sep 2005
Source: Sun, The (UK)
Copyright: News Group Newspapers Ltd, 2005
Contact:  http://www.the-sun.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/433
Author: Tony Partington - Associate Night Editor
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

WHY NOT LEGALISE DRUGS...IT WORKED FINE THE LAST TIME

"E's are good, E's are good. Good value, anyway. If you like that sort of 
thing.

It's 50p for an ecstasy tab in Portsmouth and 80p in Cardiff as drug prices 
tumble on the street.

In London, they're offering super-market-style deals. Two ukp10 bags of 
heroin and a ukp10 bag of crack for ukp25, according to a nationwide 
survey. That's almost a three-for-two.

It's hardly surprising Tory hardman David Davis would seize on this as "a 
shocking indictment of Labour's absolute failure to tackle the scourge of 
Drugs."

Much more surprising to find he has a rival for the Tory leadership who is 
seriously asking if all drugs should be legalised.

The man who's put his head above the parapet is David Cameron, at 38 the 
youngest and poshest of the leadership contenders.

He suggests governments might take control of the supply and quality of 
drugs. By making drugs legal and supplying them ourselves, we could 
collapse the black market and put dealers out of a job.

The State as the ultimate drug dealer. And this from the ultimate Tory Boy.

Now that really is mind-bending.

Would it work? Could it work? I frankly admit I don't know. But let's take 
the argument for a spin.

Cameron describes his ideas on legalisation as "fresh thinking and a new 
approach". They're nothing of the sort, really.

Up until the late Sixties, the law had little to say about people addicted 
to heroin. They got prescriptions for it from their family doctor, just 
enough to keep them quiet. Addicts were regarded as creatures to be pitied 
rather than prosecuted, and there were only a handful of them.

This tolerant disapproval of drugs was highly successful and became 
worldwide as The British Method. We've had legal drugs, and it worked. What 
we're really talking about is more a case of re-legalisation.

In the late Sixties, at America's urging, we and many other countries 
signed up to the War On Drugs.

All over the world, drugs were outlawed and users and dealers prosecuted 
and imprisoned.  Kids were urged to Just Say No.

Illegality gave drugs an extortionate value, far more than the worth of 
their ingredients. Even in today's buyers' market.  50p may sound cheap for 
an ecstasy tab, but what does it cost to produce?  Pennies, probably. 
There's still a big profit there. Somebody thinks it's good business.

It's this inflated value of drugs which is behind the harm they do to 
society as a whole.

It's the inflated value that makes dealers think it worthwhile to wage 
murderous turf wars on our streets and hang around school gates looking for 
customers.

it's the inflated value that drives addicts to rob and burgle the rest of 
us to pay for it.

The cost of all this to society, when you include the millions we spend on 
police and customs operations and imprisoning people, is horrifying. Quite 
apart from the human misery involved.

Making seizures doesn't help. Supply goes down and the price inevitably 
goes up. More crime is committed to pay for more expensive drugs. If we 
don't make seizures and there's plenty around, pushers simply redouble 
their efforts to get more people hooked and maintain cash flow.

It's not as if we are winning the War on Drugs. The latest UN report shows 
200million drug users worldwide up 15 percent on last year. Dealers raked 
in ukp177BILLION, more than the economic output of 90 percent of nations.

Price is the key to all this.

If government-controlled drugs were cheaply available, might it not cut 
through his hideous vicious circle?

Users wouldn't need to fund their habit by making our lives hell. Dealers, 
meanwhile, would find nobody to buy their overpriced, adulterated wares.

We could spend every penny saved from enforcement and imprisonment and 
drug-related crime on treatment, prevention and educating people not to 
take the stupid things in the first place.

I'm not saying legalisation is definitely the right thing to do. Neither is 
Cameron. He's saying The Drug Laws Don't Work. And it's difficult to argue 
with him. Bravely, he's risked the wrath of his own party by wondering 
aloud if it might be time to begin thinking about legalisation.

Could he possibly - just possibly - be right? This news brought to you by 
http://www.ccguide.org.uk/index.php
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom