Have you signed the Vienna Declaration yet?
One of the features of the XVIII International Aids Conference currently going on in Vienna is launch of this simple declaration, to which you can give your support.
The criminalisation of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences. A full policy reorientation is needed.
It ought to be a no-brainer. Go. Do it.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 12:35,
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Personally
if I were doing something recreationally that became illegal, I'd stop doing it, and wouldn't use it's criminalisation as an excuse for the ill-consequences that my doing it caused.
(, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 12:41, Reply)
What if you were addicted to it?
I'm sure a lot of people would give up if it was as easy as you suggest.
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IHaveABadFeelingAboutThis most likely working from home on, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 12:44,
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Also, the idea that people might treat legality as the clincher...
... seems psychologically implausible.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 12:58,
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Since these drugs have been illegal since before the vast majority of us were born
how about just not starting? It's not rocket science.
(, Wed 21 Jul 2010, 8:51, Reply)
I'm assuming internet sarcasm there.
Am I right?
Noone is denying that there are undesirable consequences of much (most?) drug use. But treating it as a problem for the criminal law, rather than as a social and public health problem, is utterly counterproductive.
The only people who benefit from illegality are the traffickers. For everyone else, it's a disaster.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 12:48,
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Am I right also, they still would employ harsh penalties for trafficking which is what Portugal has done?(I think)
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Christian's Bolt and Ski, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 13:38,
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Yep.
But if it's decriminalised everywhere, there'd be no room in the market for traffickers to operate - or, at least, they'd be reduced to the status of dodgy cigarette dealers. But why buy from an unlicenced dealer when you can get stuff from an approved pharmacy that's guaranteed for quality?
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 13:40,
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Buy Scag At Boots, 3 for 2...
either way, the CIA gets the money...
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Avast is still alive!!!!, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 15:35,
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The declaration is a call for a review.
From the site: The Vienna Declaration is a statement seeking to improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies.
If it was down to me, I'd decriminalise everything, and treat all drug use from nicotine to heroin and back to alcohol as a public health issue.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 12:50,
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i dont know enough about the science to form a valid opinion,
but nicotine is legal and there are still hundreds of thousands of addicts - despite the money that is spent on anti-smoking campaigns etc.
(, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 13:25, Reply)
I think the point is meant to be about removing some of the added issues such as passing disease through used needles.
The kind of stuff which could be monitored (may be entirely wrong, still reading it through).
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Christian's Bolt and Ski, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 13:27,
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^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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I don't think legaslisation of drugs will come soon or be an easy fight.
If drugs are elgalised then the government will save alot of moeny by not trying to shut them down and make lods more thanks to taxes.
But then the number of drug dealers bribing their way up the private investor (lobbiests and donators) food chain will diminish.
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Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 13:08,
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although I broadly agree there's a lot to be said for decriminalisation of drugs
it would be easy fuel to whip up a moral panic amongst the socially conservative - and we've got a government that responds to such stuff - they asked Facebook to remove the Moaty RIP stuff etc.
So I don't see it happening anytime soon either.
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rob, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 13:15,
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I think you're absolutely right about that.
Though the precedent set by Portugal is a good one, so might be taken seriously within the EU.
The big prohibitionist is the US, though - but even there, I can see a time when the crisis in northern Mexico will lead the Mexican government to act, and that could well force the US' hand. And maybe that'll happen before there're too many more deaths in Juarez.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 13:23,
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I heard about this on radio 4, it intrigues me.
I was stunned to hear that Portugal have managed it successfully.
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Christian's Bolt and Ski, Tue 20 Jul 2010, 13:21,
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