Drugs Are Bad, M'kay?

Heroin will be legalised and regulated within several developed countries within the next 20 years. Within 50 years the idea of criminalised heroin will be as anachronistic as 1920's alcohol prohibition in the USA.

I just wanted to get this prediction down for posterity. I've been saying it to anyone that will listen for several years, but it seems that the tide is truly now starting to turn.

We know that retired policemen, back-bench politicians, and anyone who has ever studied the subject without regard for the views of the Daily Mail have increasingly been saying the 'unsayable': drugs should be legalised. Good grief, even The Economist has been making the case since at least 1993 (http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2009/03/economist-revisits-long-standing.html). However, when even the incumbent President of Mexico says it should be considered, you know the writing is on the wall. As it happens, President Calderon has qualified his comments by saying that he doesn't agree with it personally (weasel words if ever there were any: imagine David Cameron saying "we need to have a discussion about cutting the public budget and raising taxes; I don't personally believe we should, but..."). But a former President has no such concerns - he doesn't need to kowtow to the church or the USA, hence Vicente Fox has said it straight: (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gMi5B2USfJStXxfqgWWr2xjRYpOgD9HFMD5O0)

Of course, despite my opening comment, this isn't a debate about heroin. It is a debate about all 'illicit' drugs (marijuana, cocaine, etc). However, I specifically mentioned heroin for two reasons.

Firstly it is the uber-bogeyman of drugs. According to popular imagination, even being in the same room as heroin will cause you to lose your mind and descend into debauchery and depravity, if indeed those are two seperate things. Despite this lofty position as the bete noire of chemical substances, I maintain that heroin will be amongst the drugs that are legalised.

My second reason for specifically mentioning heroin is that it needs to be legalised more urgently than anything else. Illegal heroin is very dangerous. It is highly addictive (although nowhere near as much so as tobacco) and as such commands particularly high prices. This drives many users (although by no means all) into a spiral of criminality that ruins their lives and the many people effected by them. It is also a highly dangerous drug as users often resort to injecting. As we all know, in a illicit environment this carries a grave risk of HIV and other infections. It also means that the multivarious cutting agents that are inevitably passed off in street heroin can frequently be dangerous and/or deadly.

Did you see the "illegal" qualifier in the second sentence of the previous paragraph? Here's the rub. Heroin itself is a very safe substance. Pause. Deep breath. Let's try that again. HEROIN ITSELF IS A VERY SAFE SUBSTANCE. I know the vast majority of people who come across that statement simply won't believe it. The simple truth is that they would be wrong. A brief reading of the facts will explain all, and I can think of no better place to start than http://www.flatearthnews.net/media-falsehoods-and-propaganda/heroin. This is not a screed by some hippy drop out or conspiracy theorist, but careful research by an "award-winning" (aren't they all) journalist.

And if I need to provide one piece of evidence, one little factoid that might make people open to reconsidering their deeply held Daily Mail opinions, it would be this quote from Davies: "(Martindale, the standard medical reference book,) records that heroin is used for the control of severe pain in children and adults, including the frail, the elderly and women in labour. It is even injected into premature babies who are recovering from operations. Martindale records no sign of these patients being damaged or morally degraded or becoming criminally deviant or simply insane. It records instead that, so far as harm is concerned, there can be problems with nausea and constipation."

Isn't it hilarious that in the popular imagination, heroin is about as safe as arsenic. Isn't it a terrible indictment of our media and our politicans that the truth has been so comprehensively suppressed. This is in large part (although typically indirectly) a result of pressure from the USA to maintain the global war on drugs (very useful cover when you want an excuse to send hundreds of millions of dollars to a client state). In the past, any country attempting to liberalise drugs laws came under intense pressure from Uncle Sam. It seems those days are gone.

I don't expect that a UK Prime Minister will make the case for legalisation anytime soon. The Daily Mail and the prejudices of its readers are too powerful to allow that (have I mentioned the Daily Mail before?) However, the public will increasingly become aware that the drugs laws are a pathetic joke - the single biggest blight on the world since malaria. They will become aware that legalistion and regulation will: -

- slash (and I mean SLASH) crime;
- not lead to a huge increase in drug use;
- generate savings for NHS budgets as existing users become healthier;
- provide a massive source of new tax revenue;
- create a whole new field of legitimate employment;
- strangle funding to terrorists;
- Kick the feet away from organised crime (at least until they find a new source of revenue); and
- generate more wealth and social cohesion in developing nations, who will be able to legitimately profit from the trade.

And they will demand change. One day. Within the next 20-50 years.