Alcohol and tobacco are legally sold and regulated in the UK, yet why are we still not
decriminalizing the remainder of recreational substances that would ameliorate the jeopardy people face due to gang domination and the illegal unregulated supply of drugs?
Our government needs to wake up to the immense benefits of a legally regulated drug market in order to fulfill their obligatory duties of protecting ordinary people’s health and safety. An escalation in crime affiliated with illegal drug trafficking is rapidly endangering everyday people, as criminal gangs are conquering the streets with a relentless quest to supply. It seems the need for our health minister to tackle this problem is at an all-time high, and time for politicians to stop pot-tering
around with this whole Brexit nonsense and step up to our public health and safety challenge.
Yet, the government remains to cling to a dogmatic model focused on criminalisation of substance-users, leaving the gates of hell open for ruthless gangs to control our streets. This “war on drugs” policy is harming the most vulnerable in our society and criminalizing the affected. This is not a war on drugs, this is a war on the poor. Prohibition damages the people and the planet. In 2017 alone, we’ve witnessed record numbers of homicidal crimes associated with gang dominance of the drug market. The consequences of gang domination of the drug market is directly causing an astonishing waste of money! Increasing costs of enforcing the peremptory ‘war on drugs’ is the direct cause of governmental overspending we have to suffer from. If redirected, the wasted money would help provide better healthcare, education and a national improvement of poverty.
Illegally regulated control of drugs is increasingly becoming detrimental to users health. Legal regulation may appear to be a lenient response to the challenges we are facing, but it is not. Victims purchasing illegally trafficked cannabis on the streets have no idea of the potency or even the contents. There are no health warnings. There is no advice available. There is no age access controls. Worst of all, profits go directly into organised crime, resulting in billions wasted on hopeless policing out of the taxpayers pocket. Legally regulated drugs would only be sold to adults, the market would be taxed, policing costs would decrease and there would be more money to spend on harm reduction interventions. The government has been treating this problem only as a criminal justice problem, ignorantly refusing to accept that we are in fact facing a public health and safety issue. Not only is this attitude supercilious, but indolent.
We need to accept, that cannabis use is incredibly widespread, and shall continue to be so for the reminder of time. We need to see the trade taken out of the hands of organised crime and regulated by the appropriate authorities. Legal regulation should not be perceived as a money-making scheme, but as a practical path to reduce criminality and protect public health. A perfect exemplar model for this is Canada, who’ve taken a grasp on the overwhelming advantages that legal regulation would give to society.
Legal regulation of drugs is a responsible solution, not radical. Recreational drugs are to profitable not to be taxed, and to menacing to not be regulated.
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