Reading this weeks New Scientist I see that "Mephedrone is a synthetic analogue of the herbal amphetamine cathinone, found naturally in the leaves of the khat plant, Catha edulis."
Does that mean that khat will also be banned?
Personally, I still think that drugs should be legalised, taxed and available to all adults in possession of a state issued 'junkie card'. The war on drugs was lost a long time ago and instead of making drugs barons rich we should raise some tax revenue.
From time to time I ask people who claim to to take drugs if, following legalisation, they would take drugs. I've yet to have someone say yes. Do we really think there would be a tide of new drugs takers following legalisation? It's worth looking at what's happened in Portugal where personal possession has been de-criminalised. Deaths and rates of HIV infection are down. " Street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually" so that's 110 people saved due to de-criminalisation. "he number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006" which can't be bad! The final step is for the state to cut out the middle man and become the drug dealer. Drugs like heroin and cocaine are intrinsically cheap - they nearly grow on trees - and it's only their criminalisation that pushes the price up.
Time to rethink the war on drugs...
Does that mean that khat will also be banned?
Personally, I still think that drugs should be legalised, taxed and available to all adults in possession of a state issued 'junkie card'. The war on drugs was lost a long time ago and instead of making drugs barons rich we should raise some tax revenue.
From time to time I ask people who claim to to take drugs if, following legalisation, they would take drugs. I've yet to have someone say yes. Do we really think there would be a tide of new drugs takers following legalisation? It's worth looking at what's happened in Portugal where personal possession has been de-criminalised. Deaths and rates of HIV infection are down. " Street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually" so that's 110 people saved due to de-criminalisation. "he number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006" which can't be bad! The final step is for the state to cut out the middle man and become the drug dealer. Drugs like heroin and cocaine are intrinsically cheap - they nearly grow on trees - and it's only their criminalisation that pushes the price up.
Time to rethink the war on drugs...
khat is a drug is "some" countries but not in east Africa uk ,Israel...
ReplyDelete