Fully agree with Greg.
It is ludicrous that the big killer drugs in Australia, tobacco and alcohol, are freely available to anyone over the age of 18, to consume as much as they like. There is a whole raft of other drugs which are available on prescription, many which don't require a prescription but can only be bought at a pharmacy and others which can be bought off supermarket shelves.
Then we say about a handful of drugs, you can't touch these at all and if you do will be treated as a criminal.

We need to regulate the supply of the "illegal" drugs to take the criminal element out of that side of the equation. Take the profit out of the drug trade and it will collapse like a heap of cards.
Then treat addicts on a medical basis, try and deal with the underlying causes if possible, but continue to provide appropriate support.
We don't treat alcoholics and chronic gamblers as criminals (not for their addiction, only if they resort to crime to support their addiction) so why should other addicts not be treated the same?

Hmm... while I think new approaches are needed, I'm not so sure of the effectiveness of total legalisation of drugs... that being said, I'm not in favour of jailing users.

The rub, to me, is it's all well and good to point out the money saved from the war on drugs and say it could be better spent - the author speaks of how prohibition of alcohol failed, and it only allowed organised crime to flourish - the solution, was to legalise it.

Okay... but the two legalised recreational drugs, cigarettes and booze, cause an disproportiate amount of damage, and economic problems.

What say another drug were to suddenly rival the medical costs of alcohol? We'd be looking at a pretty hefty financial problem.

I agree it makes no sense to have drugs like alcohol and cigarettes legal while banning other drugs which aren't any more harmful, but is the solution to add another drug that could cause similar damage?

Any rational person can see that the drug war is ridiculous, by why treat it as a health issue? If heroin on prescription was adopted there wouldn't be any health problems such as HIV, hepatitus and junkies being strung out. Heroin of itself causes no health problems.
For pot the health issue is respiritory so only requires pot cookies to solve that problem.
The illegality of drugs creates a closed world for the users and so contributes to overindulgence, but one thing I've noticed, not many wealthy cocaine users ever seem to get into trouble with the law

Citizen wrote: "Any rational person can see that the drug war is ridiculous, by why treat it as a health issue? If heroin on prescription was adopted there wouldn't be any health problems such as HIV, hepatitus and junkies being strung out. Heroin of itself causes no health problems."

Huh? I don't know what your definition of health is but someone needing to shoot up for no medicinal purpose multiple times a day, with all the risks this entails (overdose and respiratory depression, blood-borne viruses - why would users in a decriminalised enviroment stop getting Hep-C or HIV?? unless they are also getting clean needles all the time? not to mention the inability to do much else constructive than worry about your next fix) does not fit mine . Whilst decriminalisation would remove a lot of problems, no one sensible views heroin (or any narcotic) addiction as free of health problems - criminal offence or not.

Citizen wrote: "For pot the health issue is respiritory so only requires pot cookies to solve that problem."

Not true - there is significant evidence building that it can induce schizophrenia in the genetically predisposed. Theories on why this becoming more prevalent include increased concentration of THC in modern hydroponically grown marijuana and the large amounts consumed by some. It also reduces testosterone production in males. Respiratory problems are only a small part of it.

Citizen wrote: "The illegality of drugs creates a closed world for the users and so contributes to overindulgence, but one thing I've noticed, not many wealthy cocaine users ever seem to get into trouble with the law"

Heard of Dr Tim Steel? http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/socialite-surgeon-pleads-guilty/2005/09/21/1126982098408.html
Cocaine is very expensive and tends to be a recreational drug used by the better-off. There aren't many people robbing houses to buy coke and the people who get hurt by it tend to be users themselves, which may explain the lack of high-profile arrests.

Excellent article.
I must say, I don't have that much to add because what most of you said in your comments is similar to what I have to say about this article. We all seem to agree that the war on drugs is a waste of (our) money.

Spendocrat,
"For example, the US stopped testing LSD in the military pretty quickly in the seventies, when they noticed that the reaction of almost all tested soldiers was to leave the army. "
I didn't know that- hilarious.

TRTL,
good points too, although I don't think that legalising drugs would increase the use of drugs significantly. I don't expect it could become more of a strain on the health system. However, people need proper information on the usage, dosage recommended and real health risk, just like with tobacco and alcohol consumption.

The money saved from the war on drugs, if poured into the health system, would help improving our inadequate health system.

It's very hard to have an effective prohibition on substances that are regularly used by more than half the Australian population. Most people know from their own personal experience that illegal drugs are not dangerous, they have tried them and suffered no ill effects.

I agree that effort should be put into controlling the quality of the product to remove the nasty additives.