Quote:
Originally Posted by Diny
This bit deals with security. Trying to undermine criminals means that they will get pissed off because someone is getting in the way of them making money. More laws and bans means that criminals simply have to work around stuff. But providing free drugs cuts directly into their market.
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What's wrong with pissing off criminals? What's wrong with undermining them? I think that would be an admirable thing to do.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Diny
This deals with supply and demand. If it's free, you can't really expect it to be of that good a quality. There is always a market for quality. You're not distributing rubber bands here. The fact that the criminals still have the good stuff means that there will be little supply for this free stuff.
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It can be whatever quality it needs to be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Diny
That is referring to logistics. You need the facilities, the sources, and the workers to process the drugs. Who would do that for free? Would this be government sponsored? The guy who suggested this doesnt sound like he was talking about government (which makes the security issue even bigger), so who would make drugs instead of watching some porn? Especially when they'd be giving away the drugs for free. Government-sponsored or not, that plan is just asking for trouble.
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Of course it would have to be done by the public sector . I propose that production is done in a high security prison with the prisoners used as workers, with preference given to child molestors and rapists. They could have privileges too, like as many free samples as they or their friends want.
For the bigger picture, look at this.
A crisis in UK drug policy
According to the EU funded European Monitoring Centre the UK now has the highest overall drug use in Europe.
The Home Office has stated that as much
55% of property crime is related to fundraising to buy illegal drugs.
Home Office research by York University estimates that
the cost of illegal drug use in the UK is between £12 and £18 billion.
Significantly for all of these disturbing facts is that they all display trends that have worsened steadily over the past three decades, and continue to worsen.
This current crisis has been precipitated by the confluence of a number of issues:
The increase in use of prohibited drugs
The most dramatic example of this trend is that heroin use has risen by 2000% to over 250,000 since 1971.
Lack of government control over price of prohibited drugs
Due to the nature of the criminal market, the price of illegal drugs is unregulated and they are sold at hugely inflated prices. For dependent users this creates enormous pressure to offend to support their habit.
Note that there is negligible crime associated with fund-raising by dependent users of legal drugs.
An unwillingness by successive governments to consider alternative policy options in light of changes in external conditions
Drug legislation is essentially unchanged since the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) became law in 1971, the Act itself based on an approach to dealing with drugs that dates back to the Victoria era. The MDA is now colliding with dramatically changed circumstances, most significantly a massive increase in the use of illegal drugs.
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