There is a certain familiarity to the words used by Bob Ainsworth, the former Labour Home Office and latterly Defence Minister, who has announced his conversion to the belief that possession of all drugs should be decriminalised.
“Prohibition has failed to protect us,” he said. Billions of pounds are being spent on enforcement policies “without preventing the wide availability of drugs.”
“Leaving the drugs market in the hands of criminals causes huge and unnecessary harm to individuals, communities and entire countries.
“We must take the trade away from organised criminals and hand it to the control of doctors and pharmacists.
“It is time to replace our failed war on drugs with a strict system of legal regulation to make the world a safer, healthier place.”
The words sound familiar to me because, in speeches and in articles over the past decade and more, I have used them all myself.
It’s a pity that they are expressed now only by a FORMER Home Office minister. The emperor is not wearing any clothes, but his serving ministers never dare say it.
Saturday 18 December 2010
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4 comments:
A politician that realises what harm the war on drugs is doing to otherwise honest decent people, someone who no doubt will end up as a great leader not a followers like we have now. The Con-dem party needs to wake up before they have complete anarchy Please keep up the good work.
Well done for sticking up for the Lib Dems' drugs policies! Keep it up.
Agreed. The War on Drugs is more like a War on Citizens.
The United States things it's a great idea to have 1% of their adult male population behind bars. I wonder what they would think if the costs of doing this were known? Of course the U.S. has a real problem, in that they have 'privately run prisons', and the owners of those prisons want to keep them full, even if it damages the rest of the economy (and just think how much additional tax revenue could be raised it half of those people were on the street working...)
According to one study in Canada, over 50% of the money earned by criminal organizations comes from drugs. Which indicates to me that legalization may be a better option. Kill the gravy train, and watch the criminals - they might even have to find honest jobs!
Someone made the suggestion that criminals would just find something else to be criminal at. While they could try, there's nothing else that gives the returns that drugs do, because if there was, they'd already be doing it.
Wayne
I agree with the previous guy: "A politician that realises what harm the war on drugs is doing to otherwise honest decent people, someone who no doubt will end up as a great leader not a followers like we have now." Not sure I'd put it exactly like that, but I certainly agree in general. More specifically, I would additionally support the idea that those of you [insert lots and lots of expletive adjectives here] politicians who stick your necks out, as you are doing, now will be appropriately rewarded later. God sees everything.
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