Philip Tang:

"Many of you nice folks are hallucinating about the failure on the ‘war of drugs’ when only half-hearted measures are taken against offenders in this country. Apply the Cuban method and drug addiction will be greatly reduced."

Well, lets have a look at the Singapore, the country with (arguably), the harshest approach to illicit drug use. Corporal punishment, mandatory prison terms and execution are all posible punishments a drug user, producer or trafficker could face.

Have these policies led to a reduction in drug use and drug relate crime? Well, yes and no. One sucess of the policy has been to limit epedemics of drug use, essentially keeping drug use below a critical threshold.

However, overall the policy has not stopped young Singaporese from taking drugs (particularly ice) or stopped smuggling. The Singapore Central Bureau of Nacotics showed that 3393 people were arrested in 2002 for drug offenses. During this year there was an increase of 16% of first time offenders arrested over 2001.

The rates of drug use in Singapore have decreased for some drugs, and risen for others. In 2002, 620 arrests were made for methamphetamine. In 2001: 230. Similar rises were reported in etctasy.

In order to enforce this law, the Singapore prisons department estimates that about 400 people have been executed since 1991. The war against drugs in Singapore has infinged upon the rights of the citizens, who can now be searched without a warrent, and are assumed guilty in court. The Misuse of Drugs Act has made Singapore the worlds biggest executor per capita. A the while, people still continue to take drugs in Singapor.

To quote the legal study: Drug War, Asian Style

"These policies do not appear to be particularly effective"

www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v6n1/swensen61.html

Great article and great responses from posters. Being originally from the Netherlands I've followed the drug debate in that country.

Drug abuse has long been seen as a health problem. Every 4/5 years indept research is done to determine the current level of drug use amongst the Dutch.

Interestingly, in such a liberal country, drug use is slightly lower amongst its citizens than say in Australia and much, much lower than in the USA. Also, the age at which drugs are first used is higher in the Netherlands, than it is here or in the USA. Which goes to show, prohibition just does not work.

There are billions, upon billions of dollars flowing into the pockets of highly organised cartels. Some Afghani tribes are using these dollars to buy arms made in....,but that's another story.

Spendocrat, you'll be scaring the bejesus out of many by suggesting that illegally acquired drugs are not the greatest evil. We've been brain washed for so long. The truth is of course, that drug use and misuse has been with us since the cave days.

Anyone who continues to support prohibition should read the information of a new study on Australia's "war against durgs" at this link : http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21603780-5003402,00.html.

It is noted that even John Howard is changing tack by announcing a package more focused on rehab and education. We hope anmyway.

What a fantastic article!

There is nothing more I can add to the content as it was spot on.

Given the almost unanimous responses in agreement that 'prohibition is a abysmal failure', and that we need to consider an approach which includes restricted access to legally produced drugs by consenting adults - why is there not a formal movement that we can get involved in to further this aim?

It would seem that despite the current lunacy which surrounds this issue in the public domain, that anyone with even half a rational brain can see the futility of the law and order approach to drugs.

Somebody please start a formal movement against prohibition. I'd be the first to sign up.

Daniel

The following article is a brilliant assessment http://www.tai.org.au/documents/dp_fulltext/DP83.pdf

Spendocrat - you seem to have missed the point of the article, it was about DECRIMINALISATION not LEGALISATION - they are very different beasts... and all of my posts have been PRO-decriminalisation. I was the second poster on this thread and whole-heartedly backed the views espoused in the original article. The man-boobs thing was in reponse to your flippant comment about reduced testosterone in males being a good thing - medically, it is not.

Robby H:
Thanks for adding your learned opinion to the debate on the medical effects of marijuana. I imagine all those researchers out there will by now have abandoned their years of case-control studies and painstaking efforts to gain greater scientific wisdom in the devastating light of your latest contribution to the collective wisdom of humanity - that "schizoid evidence you refer to is absent.."

Thanks also for the insightful comments on why the studies were flawed, how they could have been better constructed, etc. As for your differentiation between 'pot' and more potent varieties, if you had bothered reading my reply to citizen properly, you would note that I had already pointed out the fact that researchers were suggesting that increased potency of modern cannabis was a potential factor in increased levels of schizophrenia (which you deny, citing no evidence). Studies to date have been equivocal and though no-one has proved outright causality, (in the way, say that smoking and lung cancer are linked) many who work in the field are convinced that there is a link.
(tbc)

As for heroin use, the idea that there are legions of well-functioning heroin users out there just casually shooting up before bed and beautifully managing their use is just utter garbage. Do you know anything about opiate dependency? Do you know anything about the physiological effects of opiates? I really doubt it given the rubbish that you post here. The health effects of heroin use are NOT just a media beat-up, they are real and they are a problem, despite what you and others here seem to think.

So, because I apparently need to make the point clearer for some people, here is my 2c worth.

- Drug dependent people should not be punished through the criminal justice system. IT IS A HEALTH PROBLEM AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH
- Rather than trying to throw ever-increasing $$ at prosecuting dealers, simply take them (and the crime that currently goes with drug dependency) out of the equation by allowing registered users (patients) to access regular supply as well as clean needles. This is not tantamount to an open-slather approach, telling people it is all legal and to take whatever they want, because we don't care as a society.
- Allocate newly freed-up resources to educating people as to what drugs can do to their bodies (including tobacco and alcohol) and trying to minimise use.

So YES I disagree with the ultra-libertarian views of some posters here, that regular drug use is harmless, inevitable and we owe our children nothing in terms of trying to protect them from some of the damage that they can do. Drugs DO do harm. Decriminalisation and legalisation are different things. We need to embrace the former as a matter of urgency but be very wary of the latter