(no subject)

[andrewducker]

North Wales Police Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom says he is prepared to see drugs such as heroin openly on sale because current drug laws are doing "more harm than good".

Speaking on BBC Wales' Dragon's Eye political programme, Mr Brunstrom described drugs as a menace and said that current policy was creating crime around massive illegal profits and putting vulnerable people in danger.

"Heroin is a very, very addictive substance, extremely addictive, far more so than nicotine, but it's not very, very dangerous. It's perfectly possible to lead a normal life for a full life span and hold down a job while being addicted to heroin.

"I don't advocate anybody abusing their body with drugs but clearly some want to. What would be wrong with making heroin available on the state for people who wanted to abuse their bodies. What is wrong with that?"

Mr Brunstrom believes that legalising drugs would wipe out a multi-million pound criminal trade and says he has been amazed to receive "massive" public support for his views.

More here

Comments

[nickys.livejournal.com]

Yes, in this country we used to have a widely admired system of prescribing heroin to registered addicts, thereby taking them out of the drugs market entirely.
That instantly cuts out the pushers' incentive to try to get people addicted, because it loses them customers instead of gaining them.

And look at what a stunning success Prohibition was in the USA... The Mafia really got established in the USA during the Prohibition era.

It's not really reasonable to make laws against something which does not harm others.
Taking drugs (including nicotine, alcohol, and my own favorite one: caffeine) has consequences, but so long as people are educated as to the consequences then surely they're entitled to make their own choices.
The drugs trade only causes harm to people other than the drug users because it is illegal and is therefore linked to organised crime.
If it was a legal trade then organised crime would lose a major source of income and it could be taxed like cigarettes and alcohol for the benefit of the country as a whole.

Re:

[andrewducker]

<AOL>Me Too</AOL>

Reasonable laws...

[whiterabbitt.livejournal.com]

I think there are a lot of laws that appear to prevent individuals from harming themselves, but their basis for existence is that they prevent harm on the community. Speed limits are okay because the costs to the communal (serious injury of multiple parties) outweigh the community benefits (um... faster transit?). Similarly, I think laws against PCP and the like make sense because user often have little knowledge of what they're doing while high, posing a high cost to the community (entirely unexpected murders and such--complete temporary insanity resulting from a bad trip, for example) and little benefit beyond the individual.

It looks like the only difference between PCP and pot (to pick some examples) is the cost. I think it's unreasonable to declare alcohol illegal, and the associated communal cost is possibly delinquency and mild drunken violence. If we agree that we won't outlaw alcohol, we eliminate alcoholic-level delinquency inherent to drug use from the cost analysis of all drug use. The major cost associated with illegal drugs is crime, which seems to cascade directly from scarcity, so general crime increases look like they mitigate out, too.

Now drugs can be considered individually. Many people overlook the loss of health at the community level associated mostly with smoked drugs--individuals don't pay for all their healthcare in most systems. From this standpoint, injected heroin looks more reasonable than both smoked pot and smoked cigarettes. Here, we indict drug companies that cover up long-term health threats posed by their treatments.

Sorry for the slight disorganization--I'm formulating as I go. I think this makes sense.

-Xander

[nickys.livejournal.com]

> I think there are a lot of laws that appear to prevent individuals from harming themselves, but their basis for existence is that they prevent harm on the community.

That's an interesting point.
Still, we manage to have a law against driving while drunk without having a law against drinking to excess, so it should be possible to, for example, have a law against taking PCPs in places where there is a risk of harm to the community (ie anywhere other than in private among consenting adults) without denying individuals the right to screw up their own bodies if they wish.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Don't expect him to still be in his job next week, once the terribly-balanced press latch on to this.

After all, not only is he in favour of legalizing drugs, he's also opposed to people driving like wankers. Horrific!

[cx650.livejournal.com]

I believe I have said this elsewhere but I feel it bears repetition. Having worked in a pharmacy I am very aware of the price differential between prescription quality and street quality drugs. I have to agree with the contention that it is the profit motive alone which keeps criminals in the equation. Legalisation of a carefully thought out system of legal supply would remove this profit from up to 90% of the market, and make that which remains more controllable. It would also bring a vast majority of users under medical supervision in a self-financing manner. Whatever the faults and loopholes of any legal method of supply that may be set up, the benefits should give us a distinct improvement over the status quo.