Illegal drugs: The wars don’t work

UK political party, Cannabis is safer than alcohol (CISTA) is fielding candidates in the UK general election next month.

http://cista.org/

Funded by one of the co-founders of Bebo, a social network.

Reality steps in and it's bad. In Russia drug addicts were (and still are, to lesser extent) responsible for very large if not largest portion of crime, especially burglary and theft. It is a major problem, it is there and you can't go around it. And usage isn't punishable here, only distribution. So, don't dismiss parent comment so easily.

'Caffeine and alcohol are drugs' - yes, alcohol comes hand in hand with theft and other crimes.

'It's exactly a victimless crime' - it's victimless short term, but if it's hard drugs addict, there will be victims sooner or later. They will do nasty things just to get next dose.

And I support claim that war on drugs is wrong, and you can't win it (for economical reasons). But usage should be controllable.

I hope they apply this to PEDs as well. They actually have health benefits (as well as drawbacks), rather than just altering your mental state.

>> In Russia drug addicts were (and still are, to lesser extent) responsible for very large if not largest portion of crime, especially burglary and theft ... So, don't dismiss parent comment so easily.

My issues with the parent comment are not that addicts never steal, it's the ignorance of lumping all drug use into the same category and then saying 'drugs' make you steal.

It's the same in the UK - addicts of one sort or another do disproportionately make up the crime figures. However the proportion of drug users who are addicts is small and the proportion of addicts that steal is small so saying that drugs and theft go hand in hand is just plain wrong.

>> yes, alcohol comes hand in hand with theft and other crimes.

Again, a tiny proportion of drinkers may cause a problem, this is not the same as saying they go hand in hand, implying anyone who has a drink is going to get addicted and steal stuff to support their habit.

>> it's victimless short term, but if it's hard drugs addict, there will be victims sooner or later. They will do nasty things just to get next dose.

Firstly, we're now talking about a subset of drugs, rather than trying to tar all drug users as thieves. Secondly, in a situation where the government treats heroin as a health issue this doesn't occur. Switzerland basically killed this stuff and proved that heroin addicts could lead quite a normal life if they knew where the next dose was coming from - a government clinic in this case. And there's nothing like a queue of old junkies outside a medical facility to put the youth off heroin.

Heroin is one of the most harmful drugs to the user[1]. Its usage should not be encouraged by anybody, but heroin should absolutely be legal, heavily regulated, but legal. The VAST majority of heroin related deaths are just that, related to heroin but not caused by it.

Heroin is actually a remarkably safe drug in a clinical context, it does almost no long term damage. The main problems with it are that it is highly addictive, users rapidly develop a very high tolerance and it is fatal in overdose. Heroin overdose is very easy to treat, there is a antidote to heroin called Naloxone. If administered in time, it will almost certainly save the life of somebody who is overdosing on heroin.

People who use heroin die because they share needles and contract diseases such as HIV/AIDS. People who use heroin die because they do not use clean needles and get sepsis when they inject. People who use heroin die because they do not have pure heroin.

Heroin can be cut with both active and inactive substances. Some of the inactive substances used are toxic, they make accurate dosing, which is critical to using a drug with such a low ratio between fatal dose and active dose safely. Active cuts such as Fentanyl are equally dangerous[2], they make it impossible for the user to accurately dose.

I am not calling for heroin to be sold in super markets or off licences. What I am suggesting however is that for anybody who wants it, they can go to some sort of health center, be lectured about the harms, taught how to inject properly and how to administer Naloxone in an overdose situation and then be given a licence to buy heroin. The heroin would then be dispensed by pharmacies, it would come with an adequate supply of needles, Naloxone. Most importantly the heroin would be pure and unadulterated, in solution already.

There is now a much lower risk of overdose as it is far easier for a user to dose themselves. The heroin does not come with dangerous cuts. They will have an adequate supply of needles so there will be less needle sharing and less infectious disease[3].

The obvious argument against this radical approach is that it would increase heroin usage. There is no precedent for this kind of program so I cannot refute that claim with any certainty. From intuition however, I do not think there are many people where the only thing holding them back from using the drug is the current prohibition. I have not met a single person who has said "If heroin was legal I might start doing it". What I do know is under our current system of prohibition heroin usage has increased, deaths associated from it our sky-rocketing in recent years and the politicians current answer to the crises is harsher punishment for users and dealers despite that in the past, heavier punishments do not correlate with either lower use or less deaths. It is time to try something radically different, I would love to see a trial of this sort of system somewhere in the world.

[1] http://www.sg.unimaas.nl/_OLD/oudelezingen/dddsd.pdf [2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/rash-of-fatal-overdos... [3] http://www.who.int/hiv/pub/prev_care/effectivenesssterilenee...