How Decriminalisation Could Solve The Drugs Problem

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kitchen cupboard can have narcotic effects if smoked (and, used in this way, it can also give you cancer), yet few people have cause to think of this when they sprinkle it into their cakes and biscuits. Chocolate contains an addictive chemical called PEA, which stimulates our brains in the same way that Ecstasy does. Overdosing on chocolate can contribute to heart disease, the single biggest killer in this country today, but far from fearing the addictive properties of the humble Dairy Milk, we laugh and joke about them on Christmas cards and coffee cups. And coffee itself contains a strong stimulant, caffeine, which is also found in tea and Coca-Cola. Even Scotland’s “other national drink”, Irn Bru, contains this chemical, although Scotland’s original national drink does, of course, contain a much worse drug.
Do we fear drugs because they are dangerous, because they can rub out healthy young minds with a single stroke? The death toll from drugs is certainly tragic – over a ...

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age at which impressionable children take that first precious puff falls with equally alarming rapidity, perhaps it is time that society accepted one very simple solution to the drugs problem: decriminalisation.

This would not, of course, take away the drugs. But it would take away the drugs problem. There is a difference, a difference that has been fatally missed by Tony Blair and his moralising ministers. If drugs were legal, prices would come down, the problems caused by unregulated doses and chemical contaminants could be eliminated, and organised crime would be deprived of its major source of income. If drugs could be openly sold at sensible prices, users would be able to fund the ...

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