Experts recommend global drug decriminalization

[Valjean]

Interesting article in The Guardian today. Medical experts recommending global drug decriminalization.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/...xperts-call-for-global-drug-decriminalisation

An international commission of medical experts is calling for global drug decriminalisation, arguing that current policies lead to violence, deaths and the spread of disease, harming health and human rights.

The commission, set up by the Lancet medical journal and Johns Hopkins University in the United States, finds that tough drugs laws have caused misery, failed to curb drug use, fuelled violent crime and spread the epidemics of HIV and hepatitis C through unsafe injecting.

Opinions?

 

[Deathbydefault]

Drug use has always been strictly a health issue, criminalizing it in the first place was rather idiotic.
The reason it was done in america was for less than righteous reasons, not sure about the rest of the world.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Some drugs maybe. It depends.

Alcohol is a drug.

Look at what prohibition did vs the legalised distribution and consumption comparatively in terms of lives lost and related injury.

Perhaps a benchmark could be set to weigh in what would be the safer alternative after considering the pros and cons of each and every one. Blanket legislation is idiotic not to mention plain stupid and lazy.

 

[Thana]

Interesting article in The Guardian today. Medical experts recommending global drug decriminalization.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/...xperts-call-for-global-drug-decriminalisation

Opinions?

Capital idea.

 

[David1967]

To a point I agree. But drugs such as methamphetamine should never be legal.IMHO.

 

[Papoon]

The significant differences decriminalization would make...

Organised crime could no longer take billions in profits.

Crime in general would be radically reduced.

The US prison system could be significantly downsized.

The justice and policing systems would be freed up to do real work.

The quality of drugs would be pharmaceutical grade, reducing health problems, and dose would be known, preventing accidental overdose etc. Which would mean less time spent by medicos dealing with emergencies.

Drug education would be comprehensive and complete, because there would be no legal problems providing all the necessary information, especially to kids.

Research into medical/psychiatric/therapeutic uses of all compounds would not be hindered as it is now.

There are various other benefits, but that's a start.

 

[Riverwolf]

Fine with me.

Like a lot of people, I'm frequently on caffeine. Caffeine is capable of causing severe anxiety/panic attacks, dehydration, and in high enough doses, death.

So the current criminalization is inherently inconsistent, anyway, making it useless.

 

[Deathbydefault]

Potentially relevant video.

Another potentially relevant video.

 

[Augustus]

Interesting article in The Guardian today. Medical experts recommending global drug decriminalization.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/...xperts-call-for-global-drug-decriminalisation

Opinions?

Not surprising. IIRC every single major independent expert review of drug policy has argued against the current prohibition based strategies.

Drug policy is this strange case where governments often pay experts for advice that they have absolutely no intention of ever paying attention to.

Prohibition has never been an evidence based policy based on net societal benefit though, so they'll keep on with the harm maximisation policies we're used to.

 

[Laika]

It is probably an intresting angle that governments cannot eliminate drug use, but can only manange it. As long as their is "demand", someone will be willing to "supply" it at a high enough price for the risks involved. Swap the term "decriminalisation" for "privatisation" of drug control and it doesn't sound as good but that is effectively what we are doing. "more freedom" is not necessarily "better".

Decriminaization makes "some" sense but I still find it somewhat troubling because this is a primarily "libertarian" approach based on "regulating" drug use- not via state legislation but through the market place. the implied notion that people have a "right" to consume drugs, even when it is destructive to the person involved and based on addiction is contary to the assumption of "rational behaviour" which makes the free market an appropriate mechanism for responding to demand.

"ideologically" speaking, de-criminalisation is somewhat counter-intutitive for me because of my distrust of markets as a way of organising human behaviour. This is particuarly if we start getting into territory where drugs become comercialised by large corporations who can use advertising to influence people's behaviour and make drugs "cool" as they do with tobbacco and alcohol. I also can't help wondering whether the long term consequences is that we go back to the sort of "Opium Wars" where governments and corporations justify forcibly imposing "free trade" as a way to maximise profitability by insisting that the "freedom" to use drugs is one that transcends individual governments. (The background of the opium wars is admittedly more complicated, but opium was still a factor). Hidden in this are assumptions about "self-ownership" and the right of people to dispose of their bodies as they see fit. it's a view I'm sympathetic to but still think fails to take into account the role of "dependency" as a means to abuse and deny the ability to exercise a person's liberty even if they still have "freedom" in terms of what is written in the law and in abstract conception of "free will". So I'm really scratching my head on this one.

The experience of de-criminalisation in Portugal suggests that legalisation does "improve" the situation and make it more managable. So the evidence is worth re-examining if "moral" views on this are prejudical and contary to the evidence.

 

[Papoon]

Let's get real about this. Humans have used drugs as a fundamental part of their spiritual and social lives since time immemorial.

The notion that this is a problem was invented by the US government very recently, and has produced nothing but misery and cultural destruction.

The very notion that a government should remake human society in such a destructive, disrespectful way, generating billions for organised crime, and criminalising the community for no good reason is a sickness only tolerated because of a propaganda campaign which has been paid for by the very people it oppresses and disrespects.

And of course it generates billions for military black ops, as proved by the Colonel Oliver North Iran/Contra affair.

 

[LuisDantas]

Sigh. Such a misguided conclusion.

 

[Papoon]

Sigh. Such a misguided conclusion.

Yeah right. The whole human race needs to be corrected by a corrupt government.

Check the facts Luis. Drugs have been the backbone of philosophy and spiritual practice for thousands of years, in every corner of the globe.

The Greeks philosophers used kykeon, and psilocybe mushrooms and cannabis.

South America - ayahuasca is the core of traditional spiritual practice. And chewing coca leaves was fundamental in many places. With NO harmful effects.

Central America, psilocybe mushrooms and peyote.

The Vedas , soma. The original vedic text is a testament to spiritual realisation under the influence of soma (most likely a mix of ephedra, opium and cannabis).

Africa - drugs too numerous to mention.

And so forth through most cultures and times.

You are conflating the disastrous antisocial epidemics caused by the war on drugs with what has been a socially binding and illuminating aspect of human culture throughout history.

Now - if you have any argument against this which is not merely an emotional and arbitrary expression of your personal aversion, please present it.

 

[LuisDantas]

Humans no more have to keep using drugs than they have to return to slavery and tribal war.

 

[Papoon]

Humans no more have to keep using drugs than they have to return to slavery and tribal war.

They can live without non reproductive sex too. And music, poetry and philosophy.

Your point ?

 

[Revoltingest]

Interesting article in The Guardian today. Medical experts recommending global drug decriminalization.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/...xperts-call-for-global-drug-decriminalisation

Opinions?

I know what's really going on.
These experts are flirting with libertarianism.
(It's cuz we're becoming cool.)

 

[LuisDantas]

They can live without non reproductive sex too. And music, poetry and philosophy.

Your point ?

Sentience brings a duty with it. Part of that duty is refusal to encourage drug use.

 

[Revoltingest]

Humans no more have to keep using drugs than they have to return to slavery and tribal war.

The don't have to use them, but they will anyway.
The question becomes....how do we deal with it?
Criminalizing it has been a miserable & oppressive failure.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Drug use is destructive. It should be vigorously discouraged.
However criminalising it worsens the situation.
The criminal activity should be suppliers and producers, not users.

Money saved from not imprisoning and prosecuting users, should be spent on treatment and education and research into inhibitors.
treatment of certified addicts should be compulsory.

 

[Valjean]

Make them legal and they won't be so titillating, using them will no longer be cool or rebellious, they're procurement will no longer satisfy the ancient appetite for hunting-gathering, and slinking in and out of dispensaries will be an embarrassment.
I expect usage would go down.