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The Forum > Article Comments > Let's make the drug debate a fair one! > Comments

Let's make the drug debate a fair one! : Comments

By Phil Dye, published 24/5/2012

Yet in the media game, the game of public opinion, it's the emotional argument complete with pictures of grieving parents and once smiling children that has the greatest impact.

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At last! Something honest and realistic about the drug debate was long overdue. Gambling, alcohol and tobacco cause far more social breakdown than the 'soft' drugs. Can this be sent to Julia?
Posted by Kareninaus, Thursday, 24 May 2012 8:50:02 AM
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The author is wrong here. Its not an emotional argument that is proffered by anti-drug campaigners. The fact is that if alcohol and cigarettes were illegal there would be far fewer deaths form their usage and much lower usage rates. Its the illegality of the drugs which limits their usage. Legalising drugs is just a way of legitimising and increasing drug use.

Doctors etc using recreational drugs?? Seems like the author is OK about a soft drug using Doctor operating on them or their family. What an amazing admission.

No way would I want a Pilot or Surgeon I use to be a casual Ecstasy user. Seriously this is complete lunacy!

'Safe' drug use? Think I have heard this term before with the 'Safe' injecting rooms at the Cross where people overdose regularly and often die.
Posted by Atman, Thursday, 24 May 2012 9:57:51 AM
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The debate should not be between pro-drug and anti-drug (myself I am anti-drug, including the legal, prescribed variety), but between pro-war-on-drugs and anti-war-on-drugs.

We know already of the logical arguments against the war on drugs, how it actually increases drug use, its financial costs, its taking police resources away from real crime, etc., but that doesn't mean that all emotional arguments are on the side of the war-on-drugs:

If you were ever robbed by junkies desperate for money to feed their illicit habit, or perhaps you were not robbed yet, but you are afraid to walk the streets because of them; or if your home was broken into and those junkies left all that mess, much worse than the strictly-economic damage, or perhaps you tried to resist them and they ended up burning your house, then you would really wish they could instead just pay $5 for their poison, or grow/produce it themselves and leave you alone.

If you ever faced the humiliation of being searched, stripped, arrested or had your home invaded by the police on suspicion of having/producing drugs, despite that you wouldn't touch even the legal/prescribed variety with a 3-meter pole, then you too would side with the enemy-of-your-enemy, the drug-takers.

At the time, I supported the war in Afghanistan, not because I cared for the western "terrorist" rhetoric, but because I saw that as an opportunity to free the oppressed women of Afghanistan and restore basic freedoms cruelly suppressed by the Taliban. But did it work? were the women freed? was listening to music allowed? There is partial and shaky success in the capital, Kabul, but for how long? our troops are about to leave (those who haven't left already in body-bags) and then it's back to how it was.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 24 May 2012 10:16:13 AM
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Other than fear, the anti crowd not only don't know what they are talking about, but they are inflicting real harm. In far too many cases, the two most dangerous aspects of recreational drug use are buying a dodgy product, and having to deal with criminals.
If recreational drugs were legalised, quality control would become established. With no more dodgy mixing of who-knows-what to cut a backyard product to maximise profit, how many of the deaths mentioned by anti-legalisation campaigners would be avoided?
And consider the possible income as opposed to the current outlay. A clean product sold at a fair profit and taxed just as alcohol and tobacco are taxed would generate income. Opposed to this is the huge expense of policing, apprehending, trying in counts of law, and incarcerating far too many people for what is essentially the now ridiculous crime of a good night out. Add the careers and wages lost through the stigmatisation of a criminal record blotting a person's record, and the high price we are paying for illegal drugs is seen as simply absurd.
Look carefully at the story now being played out in Portugal. They legalised, or at least de-criminalised, almost all recreational drugs, and the nation's drug use plummeted. The lure of doing something illegal is as big an attraction at a certain stage in most young lives as is the effect sought from recreational drugs.
Recreational drugs are part of the modern life. Many may not approve of that, but they would be doing themselves and the rest of us a favour if they could see the woods for the trees and get used to it. It's not as if using would suddenly become mandatory.
Posted by halduell, Thursday, 24 May 2012 10:27:18 AM
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Cannabis may be a relatively 'soft' drug, but cocaine, ecstasy and non-needle drugs (meth? ice?) - to classify these as 'soft' is 'soft in the head'!

The author doesn't compare apples with apples when comparing tobacco deaths to illicit drug deaths - tobacco is a slow killer, with long term side-effects on circulation and in lung disease and various cancers, but overdose doesn't kill, and no-one has died from a single use. You might just as well use motor vehicle deaths as a comparison - that would be equally ludicrous.

He and so many others also ignore the positive side of tobacco use - that its moderate use improves concentration and relaxation, particularly in dealing with stress - even as so many in our increasingly competitive society suffer life-threatening conditions because of stress. Tobacco does NOT cause delusion or loss of inhibition, or lack of control, mobility, perception, judgement or sense of personal responsibility. Can the same be said of alcohol or any of the other so-called 'soft' or 'hard' drugs?

Alcohol in moderation does cause some of the above detrimental effects, but generally at a moderate level. Chronic use is another matter of course, but, in my view, just as with the abuse of all illicit drugs, the remedy is in psychological or psychiatric intervention - and not in swapping to an alternative 'soft' or 'hard' drug.

Halduell, >>Recreational drugs are part of the modern life.<<

What a sad indictment on our society, particularly given the freedoms, security and opportunity our society offers. Perhaps our society is too free, and stricter parental control and better example is what is missing. Escapism is a crutch, and its most detrimental effect is that it replaces or precludes embracing life and opportunity for meaningful accomplishment and self-fulfillment.

'Drugs' diminish and not enhance the human condition. All should embrace 'life', and not some drug-induced figment. A night or two in the 'tank' might bring some reality to occasional 'social' users, and would do them a world of good - if it causes a re-think of any repetition.
Posted by Saltpetre, Thursday, 24 May 2012 4:18:36 PM
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Halduell, >>Recreational drugs are part of the modern life.
Yes, it goes hand in hand with advanced stupidity.
Posted by individual, Thursday, 24 May 2012 5:48:35 PM
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