Drugs are dangerous. Yet we don’t regulate and control them like alcohol and tobacco. By leaving the drug market in the hands of criminal gangs we enrich dangerous criminals and leave young people vulnerable to misinformation and exploitation. Prohibition clearly isn’t working.
The logic behind drug prohibition is easy to understand. ‘Drugs are dangerous, so ban them’. But it hasn’t worked – people haven’t stopped taking drugs. And yet we still treat all drug users first as criminals, rather than as someone with a health problem (which is how we regard alcoholics and smokers).
We can’t eradicate drugs from society. What we can do is minimise the harm that drugs cause and the harms caused by laws that are supposed to protect us.
By decriminalising drugs and investing in treatment programs, we can remove the fear of a criminal record that drug users currently have and make it so much easier for them to get help when they need it (or friends and family to get help for them).
But the power of criminals in communities will only be seriously dented if we place the manufacture, distribution and sale of drugs under government control and regulation. If the government want to send a message that cannabis is harmful, how better to deliver that message than from a pharmacist every time someone goes to buy it? If regulating cannabis works to reduce harm then we can move to control other drugs in the same way.
If we are to fight a War on Drugs, we need to find weapons that will be effective in protecting young people from harm. Too many young Scots are in the cross-hairs when the drugs themselves should be the target.
