mike[space] dot net

Today brings us the announcement that the UK Drugs Council is going to advise the downgrading of Ecstasy from a class A to a class B drug. Once again, the Government has made clear its intention to ignore this advice, in the same way as they ignored the advice that marijuana should stay as a class C, which makes me wonder what the point is of the drug council at all - it's a classic example of politicians only hearing what they want to hear, a very disturbing attitude in this supposed age of enlightenment and rationalism.

I don't understand drug policy in this country (or the world at large), and never really have. The simple fact of the matter is that people like to alter their state of mind in various ways and, irrespective of the penalties involved, will continue to do so. Whilst laws will prevent some people from taking substances, it seems clear that they have little effect on large swathes of the population. If someone wants to smoke a spliff, they will smoke a spliff. If someone wants to take a pill (or 5) when they go clubbing, they will take them. If someone wants to inject themselves with heroin they wll. The very fact that there is a massive drugs trade makes this clear.

The very idea of making these substances illegal implies that there is a whole bunch of people who don't take them because of the illegality. But is that really true? Or is it that actually they are aware of the potential harm that is caused by these drugs, and choose not to take them as a consequence of this? The illegality reinforces this message, particularly in the young, but think of the consequences of these laws.

We spend fortunes, vast fortunes, trying to prevent a bunch of people from doing what they want to do. Other fortunes are spent on then prosecuting people who's offence was to want to get high instead of get drunk. We lock them up in increasingly overcrowded prisons, and all the while, people don't stop doing it.

In the meantime, people are drinking themselves into insensibilty, beating the crap out of each other and trashing the place. People do not get stoned, and then break stuff. They eat chips, watch movies and wax lyrical about meaningless guff that they find hilarious. They don't get high on Ecstasy and beat each other up. They hug each other, dance badly and get very sweaty.

Occasionally, people die. Do they actually die from the drug, or do they die from not knowing how to look after themselves whilst taking the drug? Or from the fact that it's been cut with some nasty shit they weren't expecting? Even if they do die from the drug itself. What's the difference between that, and someone falling off a cliff they were climbing, or their parachute failing? Or being attacked by a shark whilst diving? Of course, comparing taking drugs to other activities causes the the press to go mental, but what do we do in life that doesn't involve risk. And why don't I get the choice about what risk I want to take?

People die from drinking too much. They damage their brains from drinking too much. And some people damage a whole lot more than that from drinking too much. But it's generally accepted that we should have the freedom to enjoy a drink, but we shouldn't drink and drive, or turn up to work drunk.

It's absurd. We waste police time, court time, and prison space on something that will only change through education and societal change. Think of what could be achieved with the money spent on this if it were directed elsewhere. Think of the tax cuts we could enjoy!!

And then also think of the money that could be made by having a regulated and taxed recreational drugs industry. And the even greater tax cuts that could be introduced, alongside even better anti-drugs education.

And of course, with a regulated industry you'd be able to minimise the additional crap that gets put in drugs - reducing the risk to those people who choose a different source of relaxation from those that the establishment currently deem to be acceptable.

I'm not saying drugs are good mmm'kay. They have their dangers, and people should know that what they are doing carries some risk to them and their health. But drugs are here to stay whether we like it or not, so why not have a more rational approach to them that treats people with respect, and lets people make their own choices about what they want to do with their own lives.