Randolph Bourne warned us that "war is the health of the state." So how does the state keep healthy? By declaring wars on everything. The war in Afghanistan is a disaster. The war in Iraq is a disaster. And the "war on drugs" is also a disaster. You'd have thought that governments would learn from prohibition that regulating things that people want only increases violence, while the people who want it still get it anyway. But, after all, government violence begets violence. Anyone with common sense could have told you that banning drugs would harm society. Sadly, "common sense" isn't a job requirement for people who work for government.

FTA: "Professor Sir Ian Gilmore said making drugs such as heroin and cocaine legal would "drastically" cut crime and addicts' health problems. State-regulated use of drugs would also save money and avert the need to try to stop drug production in countries such as Afghanistan, he said... He said: "This could drastically reduce crime and improve health." ...Sir Ian also said he was persuaded by a recent article in the British Medical Journal, which argued that the prohibition of drugs had been "counterproductive", made many public health problems worse, and stimulated organised crime and terrorism. Sir Ian said that banning drugs had harmed society. "There's a lot of evidence that the total prohibition of drugs, making them totally illicit and unavailable, has not been successful at reducing not only the health burden, but also the impact on crime," he said... He also suggested that regulating drug use would save money on policing and on international efforts to reduce the cultivation of narcotics. "It's more cost effective to try to treat people with drug problems than to close down poppy fields in disparate countries."

Cocaine should be legal, says top doctor. The use of drugs should be decriminalised, one of Britain's most senior doctors has said

DISCUSS!

Original posting by Braincrave Second Life staff on Aug 18, 2010 at http://www.braincrave.com/viewblog.php?id=296