Route 36 still open for business (and cocaine)
La Paz, Bolivia. Apparently the place to visit if you’re looking to have a Hunter S. Thompson 
themed night out with your mates. I’ve just read about their Route 36, a lounge that sells cocaine as if they were selling fries. Not legal, of course, but as one of the waiters says “The owner has paid off all the right people”.
But just thinking about this pop-up shop brings me to a question I’ve had for a while now, should drugs be legalised?
We all know that drugs are bad, but would their legalisation have a beneficial impact on society? Think of all the tax money the government would get and the drop in drug crimes that would follow, but at the same time I wonder if this regularization of drugs would be able to be contained. If the government would allow small doses to be given out every once in a while what would stop addicts to score from illicit dealers again to no end result?
But in this society where alcohol and cigarettes, two just as bad vices are allowed, shouldn’t drugs stand the same chance? Shouldn’t people be given an opportunity to chose for themselves or would they just fall for drugs without thinking?
Maybe it’s not a matter of “all drugs” after all. Portugal, having decriminalized drugs has one of lowest drug usage percentage in comparison to other countries. Not even absinthe is legal everywhere, even though it is just alcohol, so maybe the answer lies in moderation – not all drugs, maybe just a few?
However, even when it comes to legalising marijuana, one of the “soft” drugs, used in several countries around the world for medicinal purposes the opinions aren’t aiming for legalisation. A recent proposition which would have allowed several marijuana-related activities for instance personal usage under several limits as well as giving local governments the right to collect taxes on this substance did not pass in California failing with approximately 54% of voters saying ‘No’. California being a state where medical marijuana is allowed by law.
So, I want to know your opinions, should drugs be legalised? Which ones? Or should we just follow Mr. Dali’s approach to drugs?
I think drugs must not be legalised, even the soft ones, because this will mean that the government approves they are not that bad as they obviously are. We all know cigarettes and alcohol are bad but as they are legal we think ok, maybe they are not that bad and we consume them. I doubt that labels saying: “Smoking kills” have affected anyone and have made them give up smoking. So I think that legalising drugs will be a huge mistake and will cause many problems
Drugs cause less deaths than many other “Legal” drugs….If one approaches drugs with a level head and follows advice they can be a very safe way to enjoy a night out. Legalisation will mean regulation, that can only be a good thing!
Maybe you are right that drugs cause less death than many other legal ones, but they still cause it. But here the issue is the high level of addiction and the lack of control people have. Yes everything consumed in the right amounts is useful, one cigarette per day, one glass of red wine per night etc. Unfortunately people don’t have self control and will trade on drugs if they become legal.
Lets look at it this way. Drugs were always used up until the last century, indeed Queen Victoria was a heavy opium user. We could really make a case to ban any drug, Cigarettes, caffeine, chocolate etc, but we don’t!
The obesity problem here in the Uk, is fuelled by the over eating of food, that is essentially laced with drugs, drugs that are used to get us hooked. Should we ban this food…? No!
People have a right to decide what they want to participate in. A regulated narcotics sector, would produce revenue for the Government, eliminate drug crime over night and most importantly remove inpurities from drugs that cause the harm.
Drugs in their pure form rarely cause harm, what they are mixed with does!
There is a kind of consensus that if the governments hand was forced into legalising everything then somehow the entire infrastructure of society would crumble; nothing would get done because everyone was too high. The trains would stop running, bread would sit flat and doughy, children starve staring at a blank television screen while Adrian Chiles misses work, smacked up and floating around his front room, the parents, toothless, gaunt but content shadows of human beings living for that next hit, haunting the conscientious and uninquisitive consensus formers who feel like they are about to board an arc as the last people alive, guardians of all that is good and true and etc etc etc
But then, the scientifically established truth is that most drugs are no worse than alcohol and cigarettes in both the long and short term (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210) I don’t know many people that would run straight out of the house to purchase heroin if drugs were made legal but if they did then surely its a good thing that the economy from this sale wouldn’t involve blackmarket organisations that don’t care about someones long term health or would be prepared to murder to keep the market share of their product. But when could it genuinely be said that the government and certainly this government care about the health of their citizens? The tories are attempting to dismantle the NHS.
… It is a civil liberties issue. By making possession against the law (although it is the law that is probably the most consistently broken) you criminalize people who are exercising a choice, consuming what most of the time is something that grows naturally in the ground and harming nothing but their own synapses, Look at the way somebody behaves having taken MDMA, mushrooms or weed. Peaceful? affectionate? honest? Utterly harmless!
Drugs are bad? That’s a generalisation.
All drugs should be decriminalised and controlled by governments simply because there is no alternative. The criminalisation of drugs has simply made a lot of criminals and corrupt politicians very wealthy, stigmatised recreational user’s life choices and caused pain and damage to the people and families in close proximity to the drug trade. Yes it would be a bit crazy to begin with but society would find its level and the world would be a better place for it. The war on drugs HAS failed. It has failed in exactly the same way that Prohibition failed in America in the 1930s. It’s time for an alternative strategy and some respite for the countries directly effected by drug traffic.
here here Pablo, sounds like a man writing from experience
At the end of the day it comes down to what kind of society do we want to live in? I for one would not be comfortable living in a country where it socially acceptable to shoot up heroin or snort cocaine in public. Widespread legal drug use (and the inevitable addictions) would stretch the health service beyond repair, as already stated above alcohol, cigarettes and fatty foods are costing the NHS more than it can afford. I don’t however think this issue has to be a case of all or nothing with regards legalization. Cannabis is a drug that has very little scientific evidence against it, can be bought legally in some countries and is given out for medicinal purposes. Legalizing cannabis I think would have a very small social effect and would be a huge boost to an economy on its knees. The USA has to buy its Cannabis form Switzerland for millions of dollars each year when they have the stuff growing in there back yard! Madness.