Taking crime out of drugs ‘has merits’
Thursday 19th August 2010, 1:00PM BST.
DECRIMINALISING drugs is a valid argument but not a new one, according to Guernsey’s director of public health.
Former president of the Royal College of Physicians Sir Ian Gilmore said this week that the Government should consider a softer approach to drugs.
He said that the blanket ban had failed to cut crime and had exacerbated health problems such as the spread of HIV from contaminated needles.
Guernsey’s director of public health Dr Stephen Bridgman (pictured) met Sir Ian two years ago when he gave a talk on alcohol consumption in the North West.
‘His argument to view addiction as a medical rather than a criminal problem had been going on for years,’ he said. ‘The problem is trying to balance the side-effects of any decision.’
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To those for whom the term ‘Drugs’ causes spastic convulsions of idiocy, along the lines of “what about the children”, “drugs are bad” and “just say no”, whilst happily trotting down to your local watering hole to consume glass after glass of flavoured ethanol, guess what? Alcohol is a drug too! No if’s, no but’s, it’s a psychoactive drug just like any of the illicit ones.
So, before you start effing and blinding about what a terrible idea it is to even think of reversing the prohibition of these substances, take a moment to reflect how alcohol prohibition created powerful and dangerous criminal gangs in the US and how, by the fact that the production of this illicit hooch, without the proper control and supervision that is possible in a regulated market, saw more potent products of highly questionable quality being shilled out to unsuspecting ‘consumers’ who, after all, just wanted to enjoy a little drink or two, right?
Trillions have been spent over the past several decades around the world on supporting this absurd prohibition. It doesn’t work, accept it.
To calm your nerves a little, consider this, if the authorities were to establish a regulation of the recreational drugs market, it wouldn’t mean a hedonistic free-for-all, it would entail proper controls, better than we currently see for the socially accepted and unquestioned, yet considerably more harmful, alcohol.
Harm reduction is the key. Inform and educate, let people know the real and valid risks associated with using particular substances, not repeatedly bombard the naive with scaremongering. Ignorance kills, so start telling the truth about the physiological and psychological factors of drug use, alcohol included.
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Bill Yeager
Great post sir, but unfortunately I would imagine it will fall on deaf ears, just like it will in the UK.
Ears close up on this subject for whatever reason, despite overwhelming evidence that the current way doesnt work and that this is the way forward. I mean its had a big positive effect in portugal where its just been implemented, and last I heard, The Netherlands still functions as a country.
The problem with Guernsey is that there are too many Dail mail reading Jeremy Kyle watching sensationalists who refuse to even entertain the notion that some drugs should be decriminalised, and they wont even listen to your arguement, such is the ingrained dogma and sensationalism around the subject.
Ironically most of these people will have a snifter of port at weekends and guzzle their wine, anyone want an espresso??
Shame really because Guernsey being a small controlled population could really make a social stride forward, be one step ahead, instead of “monkey see monkey do” with the mainland and Jersey, but I would imagine there are too many politicians afraid of the backlash from the social wine drinkers and the think of the children brigade to stick their head above the parapet and support this.
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