Blog: Time for a rethink on illegal drugs?
Tuesday 17th August 2010, 8:34AM BST.
Blog: One of the country’s most senior doctors has called for the use of drugs to be decriminalised.
Professor Sir Ian Gilmour said that legalising heroin and cocaine would reduce crime, cut out the dealers and organised criminals and be better for the addicts themselves as it would control the quality of the drug available.
Sir Ian, the outgoing president of the Royal College of Physicians, made his views known in an email to 25,000 RCP members.
The Home Office doesn’t agree. It said in a statement: “Drugs such as heroin, cocaine and cannabis are extremely harmful and can cause misery to communities across the country.
“The government does not believe that decriminalisation is the right approach. Our priorities are clear; we want to reduce drug use, crack down on drug-related crime and disorder and help addicts come off drugs for good.”
But perhaps Sir Ian has a point. Drugs have been illegal for decades, yet drug-related crime costs the country more than £13bn each year and the country has the highest levels of addiction in Europe.
In 2007 the Daily Telegraph reported that more than 320,000 problem drug users committed a very high number of offences including shoplifting and violent crime, and the illegal market was worth £5bn a year.
And hard drugs are available throughout Shropshire.
So, the current system can hardly be said to be working well. And despite the Home Office’s desire to “reduce drug use, crack down on drug-related crime and disorder and help addicts come off drugs for good”, are present laws doing the opposite?
Obviously, in a perfect world, nobody would take drugs. But this isn’t a perfect world and people do. But if those drugs were legalised, controlled, and taken away from the criminals, wouldn’t that be a better system? It wouldn’t encourage or promote drug use, but instead of addicts resorting to crime to fund their habits, they’d know where to get the drugs and at a controlled price. And it wouldn’t be cut with god knows what to maximise profits.
That way, surely, it would be easier to get them cleaned up.
Surely something worth thinking about?
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The NHS are already complaining about Obese people, smokers and drinkers costing too much money in healthcare. All of the above is legal and freely available. How would legalising drugs help with their healthcare funding?!?!
“It would be better for the addicts themselves” if they sorted their lives out!
Does Professor Sir Ian Gilmour particularly relish the idea of his children growing up in a place where even more harmful substances are legal and readily available? If he believes drugs should be legalised, he also believes his children have a right to take them!?
I don’t even believe it would cut drug-related crime, as people always get greedy and want more.
Focus should lie on helping them overcome their addiction and incur harsher Laws (so people actually have fear & respect for the Legal System). The UK is already too soft – hence why our country is just getting out of control.
I can understand why people choose to emigrate! Take a look around – Are you proud to live here?
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Thank God someone’s finally speaking some sense about the massive drug problem we have. Criminalising drugs has made no impact whatsoever on usage levels, perhaps it even enhances the ‘cool’ and ‘dangerous’ factor. Let’s try something new and take the power out of the hands of the black-market. The drug industry laughs in the face of police attempts to stop it, it’s a game to them and it’s costing us a fortune, money down the drain.
Or we could just carry on in the same futile fashion…and where is that getting us?
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“The NHS are already complaining about Obese people, smokers and drinkers costing too much money in healthcare. All of the above is legal and freely available. How would legalising drugs help with their healthcare funding?!?!”
Tax from smoking already pays for treating smokers. In fact, after taking smokers treatment into account, the tax revenue from smoking leaves 50% to be used for other things.
Heroin costs alot more than cigarettes on the street yet is extremely cheap to produce. This profit would easily pay for treatment of these people.
“Does Professor Sir Ian Gilmour particularly relish the idea of his children growing up in a place where even more harmful substances are legal and readily available?”
Your totally missing the point. They won’t be freely available LIKE THEY ARE NOW, they will be controlled by the government. When I was young and tried cannabis, the cigarettes used to roll up were the hardest thing to come by as I wasn’t old enough to buy them. I could get the cannabis at school though!!!
And I didn’t go to an underperforming city school. It was one of the top schools in the country. Middle class mothers however, honestly think they’re sons/daughters are angels. If everyone was truely honest, I believe this this prohibition failure would be alot closer to home and involve alot more people than you’d think. I personally been around two off duty police officers and an ambulance driver who regularly take drugs!!!
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The fight against drugs is a total failure.This country spends millions,if not billions of pounds with the armed forces attempting to intercept ships carrying drugs,customs and excise with teams on the ground,police gathering information and arresting people whilst all around us drugs are sold openly on the street and in clubs and pubs.
Crime related to drug use is at an all time high,most going unsolved.
Legalise it,have government buy direct from the growers,process it and sell it in government outlets.
Tax it and it will still be cheaper than the current criminalized supply route.
There is zero benefit in making something illegal if the people the legal system represents,and that’s all of us, don’t want it to be so.The laws are then unenforceable and the majority of users will never,ever be caught.
Just who has the right to stop anyone else from using drugs if they want to?
Certainly make it an offense ,as with alcohol,to use be under the influence of drugs whilst driving or even being in a public place but what people do in privacy is their decision and their responsibility and no one elses.
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