Its doing more harm than good!
The International Centre for Science in Drug Policy said its report suggested the war on drugs had failed.
The report, published in the British Medical Journal Open, looked at data from seven international government-funded drug surveillance systems.
Its researchers said it was time to consider drug use a public health issue rather than a criminal justice issue.
The seven drug surveillance systems the study looked at had at least 10 years of information on the price and purity of cannabis, cocaine and opiates, including heroin.
The report said street prices of drugs had fallen in real terms between 1990 and 2010, while their purity and potency had increased.
Of course they call it the “War on Some Drugs” because the reason Heroin and Coke are getting so cheap is because people prefer to take pharmaceuticals which are of a known strength and purity. Its so much safer to take Oxycontin or Oxycodone, and because these are legal, but restricted, drugs they’re easier to get than the illegal imports.
Further much of the world’s Heroine comes from fields controlled by Al Queda, and Cocaine is the reason why the drug cartels in Central and South America are so powerful and dangerous.
And this isn’t to mention how powerful and dangerous Police SWAT teams are who are created and perpetuated by this war on drugs. I won’t be a pretty world where recreational drugs are legalized, but can you REALLY say it will be MORE scary than the world we live in now?
Plus is it really that scary?
On July 1st, 2001, Portugal decriminalized every imaginable drug, from marijuana, to cocaine, to heroin. Some thought Lisbon would become a drug tourist haven, others predicted usage rates among youths to surge.
Eleven years later, it turns out they were both wrong.
Over a decade has passed since Portugal changed its philosophy from labeling drug users as criminals to labeling them as people affected by a disease. This time lapse has allowed statistics to develop and in time, has made Portugal an example to follow….The resulting effect: a drastic reduction in addicts, with Portuguese officials and reports highlighting that this number, at 100,000 before the new policy was enacted, has been halved in the following ten years. Portugal’s drug usage rates are now among the lowest of EU member states, according to the same report.
One more outcome: a lot less sick people. Drug related diseases including STDs and overdoses have been reduced even more than usage rates, which experts believe is the result of the government offering treatment with no threat of legal ramifications to addicts.
Still, drugs are ILLEGAL in Portugal, meaning the drugs used by the people there are STILL coming from the black market, so that problem still exists, but they don’t have roving bands of state-sponsored murderers killing old women!
You think Afghanistan and Syria are stupid wars for us to be involved in? Look at the one on our own soil!
