Originally Posted by
Chef
I see the advantage in decriminalising drugs not as an answer to the problem, just a way of trying to limit the harm that they do.
If the state provided the supply and controlled the circumstances under which they taken then the advantages would be
to the public
All the dealers, their lookouts, couriers and armed protectors would suddenly have no trade. These people are just a menace to the population.
The police would not have to investigate all the dealers, smugglers, drug related violence and killings. The courts would not be needed to try and convict them a the prisons would not have to contain them and feed them and manage their release.
Addicts would not have to steal to pay for their addiction so fewer people would be the victims of crimes committed by addicts. As above fewer police, court and prisons would be needed.
To the addicts themselves.
The drugs they would get would be of a known purity and concentration, not contaminated by all sorts of junk that is going to further destroy their bodies above and beyond the damage that the drugs themselves are doing.
The needles they get to use would be clean and would be disposed of properly so the the equipment that they use would not be a danger to them or the public. The cost of providing herion to an addict for a year is about £19k but the cost of treating Hepatitis or HIV is much higher (and you would still have the addiction to feed).
The addicts are vunerable violence when they are buying from a dealer. They are vunerable when they are intoxicated. If they don't have to interact with ruthless people they are safer. If they can get their drugs in a safe enviroment they are safer.
No female addict would have to prostitute themselves just to feed an addiction. Pimps who get people addicted so that they can maintain control over them would lose that control.
Just because there are advantages of decriminalistion of drugs it doesn't mean that if we go that way then all would be rosy. It could just mean that we get a huge rise in the number of addicts and the rest of the population would have to work to provide the resources to support them in their drug habit, food and shelter as they lay about intoxicated all day.
There is a country (might be Yemen or a country near it) where chewing the leaves of a plant have hallucienogenic effects is so widespread that 25% of the countries GDP goes on growing and transporting the stuff. How would this country look if 25% of our GDP went on supporting our addict population? What would we have to give up? Health service? Schools? Roads?
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