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Let your next career move come to you.

The war on drugs

All the current focus on investigating minor crimes, etc. just makes me wonder why any educated person still thinks this is worth pursuing?  It's been clear for fifty years that diverting money from the police and prison service to treating addiction would do far more to reduce petty crime.

Politicians don’t privately think it’s worth pursuing, but because they are lots of voters who think it is, particularly older people, any politician who suggests any significant changes to laws gets crucified in the papers.

Look at what happened when David Nutt made very sensible comments about relative risks of certain illegal drugs and “healthy and wholesome” recreational activities, as well as all the social damage that booze does.

That said, it’s amazing how quickly cannabis legalisation happened in the US.

hopefully as the old gammons fade a sensible debate can be had - mind you decriminalising/legalising is an absolute minefield. how the hell would you regulate fentanyl in a way that was sufficiently liberal to kill the black market but limited the number of people killing themselves via a tiny dosage error?

 

But the thing is even some of the biggest gammons I know acknowledge that the current approach doesn't work especially those whose kids have spent the trust fund on heroin.

Bullace there are some things I don't think you can ever legalise but certainly the majority of drugs could be regulated.  Not sure though what it does to the economies of South America if we're allowed to start producing coca in polytunnels in south east England.

I remember watching a debate between two people on TV back in the late 60s.

A doctor was supporting the existing policy in the UK which was to treat addiction as an illness, and some Tory fathead was huffing and puffing about 'alcoholics being prescribed alcohol' and so on. 

It was clear to child me that the doctor must be in the right, and that the Tory fathead had nothing to refute the doctors arguments that interdiction would create a flourishing black market just like Prohibition did in the US, but the idiots won that argument anyway, and we got the legislation the gammons had been agitating for and now we have twots like Peter Hitchens utterly missing the point about interdiction policies which is that, since they don't work, what else should we do? 

It's another of those issues, like assisted suicide, on which politicians can be relied on to fail to show any leadership whatsover.

sails - but it’s really only the gammons whose child spent the trust fund on smack who’ve got the message. 
benj- I feel your pain, depressing, but must keep buggering on!

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