End Prohibition? Legalise Drugs..

On the way home tonight I heard on the radio a defensive Richard Brunstrom, maverick Chief Constable (& blogger)of North Wales Police, argue for possession of all drugs to be decriminalised.

Once again I am personalising things (not usually a good thing in Politics) but today at work I heard about yet another resident being “banged up” for several years and losing his home for stupid drug offences. I have absolutely no sympathy with drug dealers, and if “prison works” and actually dealt with illegal drug abuse in this country then I would not bat an eyelid at such consequences. However, now I feel that this is just another waste of a life.

Brunstrom’s argument was that we have lost the war against drugs and like America in the 1920s; we should recognise that Prohibition against drugs is an unwinnable war. For example, despite draconian criminal sanctions we can only stop an estimated 10% of heroin from being imported each year. The rest gets in and floods the market, often impure and untested, ultimately only benefiting low life drug dealers. He also points out that he did not want a “free for all”. I suppose there would need to be severe sanctions of dealers who for example targeted children. But the big mass of dealers who we see driving around our big cities in flash cars and covered in bling, setting a completely wrong example to young people, would be put out of business in a single stroke.

He also argues, I think persuasively, that we are pretty much near the limit of what democratic societies subject to the rule of law can actually do. If long mandatory sentences and fortitude's fail to stop criminals dealing then what do we do next? Hang ‘em high? While no doubt that does have an effect, it still hasn’t got rid of the problem in China, Singapore or even Cuba. Personally I don’t want to live in a quasi-fascist Police State simply because of dipsticks who enjoy rotting their brains for a quick fix.

Okay, I am ignoring my potentially very harmful consumption of my legal “drug of choice” - a glass of red wine that is staring at me beguilingly as I type (but, it’s organic, taxed and from Tesco’s, so it must be alright!)

Over the years I have seen what drug abuse can do to individuals and families. The filth and squalor is sometimes simply just beyond belief. Society as well suffers, not only the drug fuelled violence, muggings, burglaries and petty thefts that junkies get up to but the massive cost to the taxpayer of the criminal justice system that is needed to deal with addicts. If the present policy does not work. Something needs to be done. Something radical?

I won’t even mention the destruction and misery that prohibition causes in poor countries such as Colombia and Afghanistan. Where drug production and dealing fuels terrorism and gangsters. If we legalised drugs, these gangs would collapse.

Fundamentally, we are supposed to have a “joined up” government that is evidence based and looks at what works? If we cannot stop drug importation and abuse in this country then why do we enrich dealers with such huge amounts of money when we could simply legalise the supply, maybe require GP prescriptions, tax it very heavily and use the money to educate people on its dangers. The dramatic decline in smoking is surely a real indication of what can be done to combat drugs if it is legalised. Everything we have tried so far has simply failed.

Remember if there is nothing we can effectively do about the supply of illegal drugs by prohibition then what have we really got to lose by trying decriminalisation?