Let me start by saying that I do not smoke and I only drink occasionally. I am also in full support of Scotlands recent ban on smoking in public places. But I think that the rules surrounding drugs (both legal and otherwise) need to be shaken up a bit.
I would propose that any drugs that you smoke, you aren’t allowed to smoke in public places or around children, even in your own home. I would raise the smoking age limit to 21 and lower the drinking limit to 16. Since I’m talking about age limits, I might as well mention that I think the driving age limit should be raised to 21 and the motorway speed limit raised to 100, if not gotten rid of completely.
I used to believe that people would be better off and the public health service wouldn’t be as stretched if all drugs (and products containing those drugs) such as alcohol and nicotine were banned. And to some extent I still believe that, maybe people would be better off, but what if they would rather have a good time than be better off?
Therefore I have somewhat reversed my viewpoint on that. What right does the government have to tell me, or anyone, what substances I can and cannot put into my body? So what if it’s bad for my health? It’s my health that I’m damaging, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, who cares?
That is my current viewpoint, but I don’t just apply it to cigarettes and alcohol. I consider that viewpoint valid for all substances, heroin, ecstasy, cannabis etc. I really don’t see why it should matter that some drugs are more harmful than others, at the end of the day it’s down to the individual whether or not to take them.
And what about the public health service? Surely they would become over-run with with patients having drug related conditions. Well, maybe not, I would propose that drugs would carry a fairly high tax on them, to offset the cost to the public health service. They would be expensive, but not as expensive as on “the street”, the government would make money from it and people would have more freedom to do as they choose.
Now obviously there would have to be an age limit, much like with alcohol and cigarettes. I would think that 21 would be suitable, since it would make almost absolutely certain that children cannot buy them (though I’m sure they could acquire them some other way if they really wanted). Also, any police effort that is currently spent on trying to stop various drug related offences could be used elsewhere, since there would be no need to import and distribute drugs illegally anymore.
Although I do think that both import and sale licences would be a good idea, to make sure that there’s not anything nasty (nastier?) in the drugs. After all, there are an awful lot of white powders available to mix with cocain, and not all of them are as harmless as flour. Obviously the process of acquiring a licence shouldn’t be too difficult, otherwise it would put people off doing it legally and instead go the illegal route, then there would be no guarentee that you’re getting what you pay for and nothing else.
Am I writing all of this because I’m actually a twitchy drug user who can’t afford his next fix? No, although I do have a mild curiosity about what it would be like to take various drugs and experience their effects, but to date I’m drug-free. I’m writing this because it seems like the government is putting a lot of effort into telling us what we can’t do and making sure that we can’t do it, rather than letting us do what we want and then giving us support if and when we need it. Use tax to discourage people from using drugs, but legalise them so that we can still take them if we want, seems like a pretty good compromise to me.
As always, I would like to know, what are your viewpoints on this situation?
I agree to what you’re saying, but I just don’t think it would work out. People would be all OMG DRUGS R LIEK BAD HURRRRR” And then you’d explain your reasoning and they’d be all like “HURRR HURRR HURRR” *jesusplode* … yeah. I agree with you, overall. People should choose what they want to do with their husk, and if they choose to rot the fucker, all power to ’em.
Anarchy for the UK? :p
Please don’t get me started about religion, that’s the biggest pile of sweaty bollocks ever conceived.
Biggest pile of bollocks aside from Chuck Norris’, that is.
Could you be more homosexual right now?
Yes. I could be from 0 to 60, big boy. *wink* *pelvic thrust*
I don’t actually agree with the idea of lowering the drinking age to 16 because its just too young an age to be drinking, the UK already has a bad enough problem with obese children, and from how easy it already is for people under the age of 18 to get alcohol, making it any easier would just end up in the UK having a problem with alcoholic teenagers as well.
I know from experience with my younger sister, she’s just turned 17 and her idea of a good night for the past 12-18months has been spending her night at a mates, getting totally pissed, just about making it home before she passes out – this being at 2-3am in the morning, her then having a hangover and not going to college, if anything what is needed is tighter regulations to stop people under the age of 18 being able to buy alcohol.
As for drugs, wouldn’t making them legal, even with the high price, just mean that more people would get access to drugs, therefore more people getting addicted and having to get bigger and bigger amounts each time, getting into debt to fund their habit, and then in some extreme cases eventually turning to crime to keep it funded?
I know that’s kind of looking at the extreme negative side of it – but it is entirely possible, more so if the drugs are a lot more potent because they aren’t being mixed with god knows what substances and are produced in a sanctioned lab environment rather than some make-shift lab in the back room of a seedy motel?
As for smoking, I say ban it everywhere, its the second most disgusting habit ever, you only have to be near someone smoking for a matter of moments, and your clothes, hair everything stink of smoke. The first most disgusting habit is the cretins that think its OK to spit on the floor as they are walking down the street!
Incidentally, why do you think that the driving age limit should be raised to 21?
I think people shouldn’t group by nationality, they should group by intelligence…:p That way all the smart people could be anarchist and it would be good.
I think right to intellectual intelligence should be banned; Alongside people that can’t punctuatate. Even if they (said people) can not spell slightly more than average words and tend to buy DELL products. Without reading any of their PURCHASE AGREEMENTS as the paper it was printed to does not exist within their law of persons origin. Isn’t the english language so random?
[H]ard [D]isk now weren’t they those big flat black things that were floppier than a floppy disk??
I got a site that should replace “ba ba rainbow sheep,”
Thank-you big Dave for your … interesting posts.