Having recently read Ben Elton's 'High Society' I have come to the conclusion that all illicit drugs should be legalised. Being a former drug user only reinforces this view.

All societies have had to find a way to control the use of drugs, because an economically viable society cannot be perpetuated where everyone is wasted all of the time, as wasted citizens are not economically productive and will suffer adverse effects to their health which also prevents them from being economically productive.

Civilisations such as the Maya, Aztec and Inca used to do this through religion, whereby only once you had reached a certain shamanistic status would you be able to indulge in drug use, supposedly for the benefit of the rest of society in that you would see visions of that society's future while on certain drugs. Christian society in earlier times reinforced the values of denying oneself pleasure (no sex before marriage etc.) and thus tacitly reinforced a critical view of indulging in drug use.

In our modern society we do this by making drugs illegal, and by making alchohol readily avaliable so that we can use this as a medium of indulgence rather than another substance. Same with tobbaco.

But legalising drugs would allow our society to control the flow of these substances into society better than is being done at the moment. There are always going to be those who use and always have been throughout history, so I say it is better to monitor and control this than outlaw it completely and have only a limited idea of what is going on. We would also be able to tax the product and put this money into education programs about drugs and safety control measures so that people could be made aware of the harms and were able to make an informed decision about what they wanted to put into theior own bodies. Finally, a commercially produced version of an illicit substance, subject to regulation from the government, is much safer than if it was produced on the street.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3061121.ece

Legalise all drugs: chief constable demands end to 'immoral laws'
By Jonathan Brown and David Langton
Published: 15 October 2007

"One of Britain's most senior police officers is to call for all drugs – including heroin and cocaine – to be legalised and urges the Government to declare an end to the "failed" war on illegal narcotics.
Richard Brunstrom, the Chief Constable of North Wales, advocates an end to UK drug policy based on "prohibition". His comments come as the Home Office this week ends the process of gathering expert advice looking at the next 10 years of strategy.
In his radical analysis, which he will present to the North Wales Police Authority today, Mr Brunstrom points out that illegal drugs are now cheaper and more plentiful than ever before."

I can understand wanting to decriminalise drug taking but making it legal? So anyone will be able to sell drugs. Major corporations will be able to start selling drugs to kids. Great, so Cocoa Cola can have real cocaine in it like it originally did. Mac Donalds can sell hard drugs in the drive thrus. This is just plain dumb. If you make it legal how do you keep major marketing corporations from pushing drugs like they were Mars bars or lollies. How is having an open slather approach meant to help? By all means treat drug taking as a health problem and decriminalise drug taking, but legalising it so that anyone can sell it is just absurd.

I think that legalising all drugs would be a great idea - as long as they were subject to strict regulation, like alcohol for example, or prescription drugs. The current 'war on drugs'/'zero tolerance' approach is an abject failure and has never been successful anywhere.

If recreational drugs were legalised, much of our crime rate would simply disappear, and our prisons would be largely emptied. Of course there would be a small minority of people who would abuse drugs - as there is now - but legalisation would bring them out of the closet so they could access proper support services, which could be funded by taxes on the sale of recreational drugs.

It's one of those ideas that's so incredibly simple and rational, but is unlikely to happen in a society like ours where any government that was brave enough to implement it would be pilloried by their Opposition and crucified by the media.

The Sassoon family in cahoots with the British Crown..sold 'LEGAL' opium to the masses of China and virtually destroyed a whole country.....

GAME...SET...MATCH.

@BOAZ: And the ideology of Christianity has been used to torture and butcher millions of people throughout history. Perhaps you think it should be banned on that basis and start a War on Religion.