By all means lets all believe that the future is
bleak and that any activity, event, or any attempt
to try and face our drug problem challenges
or any attempt to solve them
will all go badly.

Lets blame the Greens/ Labor/ Independents,
and all those people who
act in a certain way that doesn't conform

Lets live in the past - rather than opening our minds
to a range of possibilities available.

Lets try not to see anything good or constructive
in others or in their
ideas and suggestions.

And see where that gets us.

If we're going to target just some political parties -
shouldn't we criticize and hold them all accountable?

Of course, its easy to claim that legalising drugs will cause bad things to happen. Yes, some people who haven't tried cocaine or speed or ecstasy or dope will have access to it and try it. And yes, for some of those people, the result will be less than optimal. So if you want to see only the downside, then that's what you'll see.

But don't kid yourself that you're see the whole picture.

Making drugs illegal also has its downside. Massive crime; massive police corruption; massive levels of overdoses due to inconsistent levels of drugs in illegally sold pills. Kids dying because the pill they took today was way more potent than the pill they took last week because they are unregulated. Entire political structures set up (eg border control) to try to stop illegal importation at enormous cost to the society which in the end utterly fails in its aim to stop the trade. Drug gang wars. Addicts unable to get the help they need because they're on the wrong side of the law.

Yep, legalising drugs isn't a perfect solution. Then again, making them illegal isn't a perfect solution. In the adult world we know that it requires a choice between bad and worse.

My view is that legalisation is less bad than what we have now. Not perfect but better. Those who oppose legalisation need to explain why they are comfortable with all the detrimental societal ills that the current drug policies cause.

Number one buffoon and all round nasty "Peter Smith reckons that Greens’ brains are stuck at 12 years; Laborites stuck at 16-17 years, and wet Liberals at 18-20 years." AND ONE NATION supporters have a fully developed brain, the brain of an adult orangutan. And anyone who joined Corny Bananas AUSTRALIAN CONSERVATIVE PARTY, unfortunately those fools, they are brain dead and poorer for the experience!

Dear Mhaze,

You wrote that you would like to see drug restrictions mirror those of alcohol.

OK, fine, then why start with legalising the bad guys' harmful drugs while helpful life-saving medicines are still restricted and require a visit to the doctor?

If adult bad guys are allowed to poison themselves just by going to a bottle shop and proving that they are over 18, then why can't good and decent citizens, Moms and Dads, get their necessary medicines just by going to a pharmacy and possibly having to prove there that they are over 18?

Nothing of course stops anyone from seeing a doctor first, if they so choose.

... Oh yeah, ordinary good people, Moms and Dads are too busy working and taking care of their families, they don't have time to lobby, to pressure, to occupy the police force and to get politicians behind them!

ACT Greens drug policy is supported by the broader community including progressive Labor and Liberal voters. But not the 'half a percent' of reactionary ratbags from the extreme right of politics.

The ACT Greens' proposal would remove all penalties for drug possession aligned with the evidence of the amounts people have for personal use. Canberrans should be supported to visit their trusted health services when they are facing drug dependency, the fear of criminalisation drives people away from support. The ACT Greens' believe that the (ACT) government should lead the community in the fight to dismantle the stigma around drugs, while retaining serious penalties for personal possession only serves to continue to stigmatise marginalised people.

It shows how the extreme will resort to a beat up, then lie and misrepresent the facts , read the opening nonsense, a total distortion. Talk of cocaine in a six pack, pure rubbish.

BTW; ttbn The Greens are not the government in the ACT, the majority of government members are Labor 10 seats, Labor is in coalition with 6 Greens, the Liberals have 9 seats.