Should all drugs be legalised?

Question

I think they should be for many reasons. I believe that many politicians share my belief but they are too scared to put this forward because the vast majority of voters would simply vote against them out of ignorance.Two reasons to legalise..it would take control awasy from evil criminal gangs and secondly crime would reduce dramatically...I could go on and on...as things stand now can you ever see things getting better?

Of course it would be controlled and all the billions wasted each year on fighting the drugs war would be used for education about drugs etc

Answer 1

things are banned because they are bad for you. obviously you are a drug user because no normal person would say otherwise

Answer 2

No. Cocaine grows in the Andes to help the indigenous people cope with their living conditions so to speak. It has no use in 'western' society beyond pure recreational use. It makes you feel invincible and the psychological price that society would pay for the legalization of it is in my opinion too high.
Heroine on the other hand is a 'managable' addiction. So maybe not make it freely available, but at least offer it as a treatment, to those who have decided they want to be addicted to something that the body rejects so violently it makes you sick the first few times you use it.
In the 80's there was a t-shirt available in Amsterdam headshops that read "Smoke The Russians Out Of Afghanistan'. I always thought it would be a great way for developing countries to pay off their national debts.
It would reduce criminality linked to drugs but the criminal-minded would only find other ways to fill their pockets.

Not sure if i see things getting better. But then i think there are a lot more pressing issues in the world as a whole than legalising drugs. The American fundamentalists (no offence meant although some will probably take it anyway, suit yourselves) would never allow it and there is too much money to lose if all these people were to be offered the chance of legally exploring 'different states of consciousness''. Also, in the long run, it would challenge long-standing paradigms. Can't be having that now can we?
They say in the market trade that you can sell anything as long as you got the right sale pitch. Untill a New World Order starts speaking to the 'masses' ... no chance.

Answer 3

The better question to ask is "How does it help the situation to make drug use a crime?"

If any drug should be illegal because it is a hazard to society, then alcohol wins all the prizes. It is associated with half of all deaths from auto accidents, homicides, suicides, fires, and drownings; half of all domestic abuse, and two-thirds of all sexual assaults on children. It causes more problems than all the illegal drugs combined -- by several orders of magnitude.

But we tried making alcohol illegal to address those problems. All it did was turn the entire market over to criminals and make things worse. Homicides soared, corrupt cops went to prison literally by the trainload, and arrests for alcohol-related offenses set new records. Worst of all, it caused the biggest teen drinking epidemic the US has ever seen. You can read about some of it at http://druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults.htm

The moral of the story is that just because something is bad, that doesn't automatically mean that making it a crime is the best solution. IN fact, it may be the worst solution.

If you really want to understand the subject, the one book to read is the Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm

It gives an excellent history and before and after view of what happened with the drug laws in the United States. At one time, all these drugs were legal and sold over the counter without even any age restrictions. They were not considered to be a major social problem. They only became a major social problem after they were outlawed.

You will find surprises on every page.

Answer 4

No, certainly "all drugs" shouldn't be legalized.... then you'd be arguing that all pharmaceuticals, regardless of testing, etc., should be allowed to be purchased by the consuming public w/o a prescription and without any assurances that they work or are safe. I imagine that you mean recreational drugs. And for the same reasons, they should not all be legalized. There are certainly some recreational drugs that are less harmful to the taker, less addictive, and could be regulated in a safer way than others (say, pot vs. heroin). Some drugs are just dangerous--highly addictive, cause extremely unstable people and actions, and are just too much. Yes, some crime would be reduced (because there wouldn't be drug crimes and, presumably, drugs would be cheap enough that addicts wouldn't have to steal [much] to support their habit), but other crime would increase--driving high, assaults, negligence and accidents while working/playing high, etc. Sure, there wouldn't be much need for drug gangs, but instead we'd feed the pockets of pharmaceutical companies (and they're really good guys, too.)
I'm not saying that we shouldn't have this discussion, but it's certainly not as clear cut as the pro-legalization camp would make it.

Answer 5

toughy for one thing if you legalised drugs for say just 3 month you would then see a drop in production as the government and world banks at the very top source the drugs and get them in the country ,its called problem ,reaction,solution anyways the banks would surface and 70% of the drugs that were coming in last month would not be coming in when for the legalised period .many FBI ,CIA, and MI5 agents have actually come out about this there was also a story on fox recently where MOSAD agents were bring in drugs and were able infiltrate U.S surveilance ,but hey that gets swept under the carpet .But anyway i think if they did what your saying then the results would nbe the total oposite of what people think would happen .laters

Answer 6

Not all drugs should be legalized, but the matter of marijuana, that should be legal, most of the politicians smoke it and the ones that don't probably should instead of consuming alcohol and then going in to make all these very important decisions that effect us all. Americans are the largest consumers of illegal drugs, so if the government would concentrate on how they could legalize it then they can take that money and get our social security system out of hock very, very quickly.

Answer 7

All drugs should be legalised and clean needles and supplies given out from clinics.
It wouldn't turn more people into heroin addicts. You either want to take the stuff or you don't.
But it would break the cycle of crime associated with drug use.

And prohibition never works.

Maybe insurance premiums would drop...

Answer 8

Durg use is a victimless crime and needlessly packs our prisons tighter than a big honkin' doobie. You should be free (in a free country to do what you want with your body and mind.) Is that not the very definition of freedom. If you should be banned from doing bad things to yourself, you'll have to ban McDonalds, dogs for allergic people, and lyrca pants (they make you look stupid).

HJ

Answer 9

I see the argument for some drugs to be legalised - well cannabis anyway but not ALL drugs. Lets face it to legalise it is to say okay we accept it and that wont happen with drugs like cocaine & ecstasy - and I'm not sure I'd want to see it legalised xx

Answer 10

Within a month or so of legalizing drugs (even the home manufacture of Methamphetimines), and the startup of large number of voluntary drug treatment centers, there would be a massive layoff of cops (mostly minorities and women), prosecutors (mostly minorities and women) and judges (mostly minorities and women ). Be careful what you wish for…

Answer 11

Whenever I see somebody prolcaim that "the vast majority of votes [are] ignoran[t]" I figure that person belongs in a country occupied solely by geniuses like themselves.