I'm with you on this.
Criminalisation turns what is essentially a health problem into a social problem. It forces up the street price, which causes more crime, and it forces down the growers' price, which perpetuates poverty. (Think Afghanistan or Colombia would be in quite such a mess if the biggest cash crops there were legal?) It forces down the quality, which means that users (especially of the powdery drugs) never quite know what they're getting.

I don't have any time at all for recreational drugs; it'd be a good thing if they were used a lot less. But they're generally not nearly as harmful as they're made out to be, and can be safer yet. And for those who have a real drug problem, you'd help them better by not making them de facto criminals.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 26 Aug 2009, 11:33, Reply)