^This^
The health problems of smoking are much easier to counter if it's legal.
But the argument here isn't just about health. It's wider. Decriminalised drugs would be cheaper for the user, which'd reduce the wider crime rate. It'd also be easier to get treatment to come off them, and treatment for related health problems.
It'd also mean that growers could take control of their crops by going legit, and charge a higher price (since they wouldn't be under the monopsonistic control of their local cartel). That'd massively improve welfare in places like Afghanistan and Colombia, and improve security as well, since the Taleban and cartels would be deprived of a major source of income and protection money.
The general consensus among medics is that addiction is an illness - partly physiological, partly psychological, but an illness all the same. It's an illness that, left untreated, is socially and politically devastating. And it's an illness that the current state of the law does nothing to help.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 13:46,
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