On Wed, 18 Sep 2013, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:
Did you mean "...there should *not* be a prohibition...", as the rest of the paragraph reads like that is what you meant to write? I'm interested to hear why you think no recreational drugs should be acceptable at all.
As soon as you say it is okay, I think you increase the problem; it's legal, so it can't be that bad....
Except that drug use doesn't increase when drugs are decriminalised. The criminalisation of drug use gives users a criminal record which makes it much more difficult for them to have a productive life and isolates them from people who don't do drugs.
Recreational drugs .... well, perhaps that is too broad, some /may/ or may not be better than others; the narcotic kind, well I don't agree there is a need for them at all ... under the guise of /recreational/ particularly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcotic It seems that the word "narcotic" either means drugs that are illegal or drugs that induces sleep. In the former case you would be claiming that illegal drugs should be illegal and the latter seems to include alcohol.
Of those whom have been through drug issues of their own, many will admit that drugs did more damage to their lives than too many current users will ever admit. The first part to handling a drug problem [for users themselves] is admitting that a problem even exists; some drug users will agree [to having a problem], but most users will justify the use instead (my life sucks for instance) and others will believe that it isn't a problem at all, period [deniable or not].
Alcohol clearly does more damage than any other drug no matter how you measure it and by most measures does more damage than all the illegal drugs. Prohibiting alcohol has been attempted and proven to be ineffective and generally a bad idea which is why alcohol is legal in the US. The various efforts at criminalising the other drugs have shown that to be a bad idea too and there is a lot of evidence from a number of European countries to show that decriminalising them is better for everyone - including drug users. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/