Why Drugs Shouldn't Be Legalised

We're getting in to controversial grounds here, so I'm going to try and express this as early as I can: These statements are (mostly) my opinion and (occasionally) fact.
I can't even begin to describe how against the blanket-legalisation of drugs I am, but I shall give it a go.

Consider this, if you will:
A pharmaceutical company throws millions in to the development of a brand new antidepressant. It's popular with doctors and their patients. A small amount of reports start surfacing that for some patients - younger in particular - the drug has produced side-effects that include addiction, altered mental states and chronic mental illness.

The findings are published, newspapers are all over it with dramatisations and ill-placed puns. It *then* becomes knowledge that the company covered up evidence of this. The company *then* claims that the side-effects reported were of no significance, because they belonged to a minority; an acceptable price to pay for the benefit of the majority.
Families of the victims emerge outrages, suing the company, which is then forced to withdraw the antidepressant.

Victory: Truth. Take THAT, pharmaceutical company, silly you for trying to better many while making a few worse.

...
Of course, all of the above is fiction.
Point one: Drug companies never talk about acute illness in the minority being an acceptable cost.
But. But. When it comes to recreational drugs, the ones that are 'all for' a "regulated market" expect the government to do exactly that.

Almost (almost!) nobody agues against the fact that using heroin, cocaine, cannabis, or any other drugs can result in varying levels of addiction, family breakdown, mental illness, or death (the last one's not a varying state. Dead is dead. But you knew that already, right?). And yet, and yet, the ones that reckon these drugs should be legalised, are the ones that claim it's to help those with medical issues, and they believe that these "side-effects" may very well be a very acceptable price to pay for what they believe should be done to benefit the majority.

Hypocrisy much?

Let's look further in to what the campaigners are doing.
The first group of campaigners are, seemingly, the most liberal. A lot of them will spend their time trying to quote Fernando Cardoso (Brazilian ex-prez): "The only way to reduce violence in Mexico, Brazil, or anywhere else, is to legalise the production/supply/consumption of drugs."
This was primarily aimed at lowering the number of cartels and traffickers by cutting their profit margins.
It was not about public health. Get that in to your head, and get it in there fast.
It was all about attacking criminals, not helping victims (I use the word 'victim' very loosely here) reduce their consumption. There are three big factors in drug use: fashion, availability, and price. Remember how LSD and cannabis became huge in the sixties? Or how cocaine became the 'in' drug in the eighties? No? Maybe you'll remember all the ecstasy and amphetamines floating around raves and nightclubs in the nineties/noughties. Maybe just recently when everyone started messing around with 'plant food'.
...Anyway, those were the 'fashions'. Just wanted to prove a point before anyone reading this started yelling that "drugs are not a fashion" - Yes, yes they are.
Now, availability and price? Well, the more available something is, the cheaper it gets. Pretty obvious logic going on right there. That is the logic behind Mister Cardozo's intentions.

The smart ones would concede that the legalisation of all drugs would see a dramatic increase in users and harm caused by taking drugs. Is this a price worth paying for a bit less bloodletting?

Anyway. The blanket-legalisation of drugs that libertarians want so badly is stupendously unrealistic.
I enjoy laughing at these arguments.


The second group of campaigners are the not-so-palatable ones that wish for a limited decriminalisation. It advocates a regulated market and has a public health rationale. Although their primary argument is almost always "legal prohibition can't possibly work, waah waah waah".
The first candidate is usually cannabis. Although the campaigners will usually argue in, what I strongly believe, is the wrong place.
They will shout to the heavens that alcohol and cigarettes do more damage and kill more people than cannabis, but they demand laws on cannabis be loosened rather then demanding laws on alcohol and cigarettes be increased.
By contrast, if you oppose relaxing the law on weed on the grounds that it causes psychiatric harm among a significant minority, as is apparently accepted, or you label yourself a 'recreational user', or you're in favour of a prohibition, then we have our tell on you already. It reveals a decent amount, and that you believe yourself to be part of an emancipatory movement.

A regulated market seems a far cry from liberating though. Is it about control, or the illusion of personal choice? There would still be criminalisation when relating to selling to teenagers, which is the most-at-risk group of long-term mental health problems from using cannabis. Some argue that it would price them out, but what it simply does is encourage indoor-farming and home-growing for some easily sourced cheap weed.
And where would that take the government? That would take them back to competing with private growers. Just in a different way.


THE WAR ON DRUGS ISN'T WORKING. You've all heard that mantra, right? But this goes for everything - crime, health, death - you hear it all over. The "war on booze" is working less so. And that has a regulated market! Increasing restrictions on alcohol are favoured by most, but why, then, is it going the other way for drugs? When you argue that our precious "war on drugs" (which is a laughable phrase, considering Latin America's real war on drugs) is not only failing to fix a problem, it is the cause of the problem.


This leaves us with the third argument for legalisation, which is actually not an argument for legalisation at all.
It isn't out to rewrite laws or conventions, it just wants to look at the reclassification of drugs and policing methods. Maybe even have a look at the law if it can. Maybe research more about the harm caused by illegal drugs. Meh.


We should probably have a good look at the Netherlands; they're good at keeping down teenage drug-use rates, and they're very liberal. Or maybe the other end of the spectrum, like Sweden. They are also very good at keeping these rates down.

This isn't even a farce of a civil rights movement. This is just a farce. I enjoy waiting for the day that I will see a good argument for the legalisation of drugs, any or all, and if I think it is a good argument, I will run down the street yelling about how wrong I was; I will call everyone I know and tell them I have changed my mind; I will grab a compass and write 'Fancy that!' on my forehead.