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distortingmirror
31 mai 2009

drug legalisation : the only efficient policy

Legalisation of the drug market is the only way to reduce risks for the consumers and the power of the criminal underworld. Legalisation does not mean liberalisation, since the State would in fact get more involved in the governance of drugs: prevention of use, distribution oversight, quality control, etc. Like for alcohol, cigarettes, medical drugs. Unfortunately, we pay the price of the rhetoric on drugs promoted by opponents of an open market approach. The « drug » has been constructed, as a concept, as the enemy, a devil’s tool. It is not rare to hear the word drug mentioned together with devil. The concept is also well limited to specific products. Alcohol in general is not understood as a drug. Everything converges to make it a product destroying our values, including the fact that it is associated with strangers: distant countries as producers, immigrants’ involvement in the distribution channels, etc. Alcohol is local, produced by reassuring Europeans; the drug is linked to unknown cultures. Therefore the debate is obstructed by social representations and the moral view that the State could not be part of drug management. even if it is obviously the case with alcohol and cigarettes.
All Prohibition is, moreover, a policing nightmare. Alcohol prohibition in the USA has created the strength of the Italian mafia; drug prohibition has been and still is an opportunity for all the criminal networks. By voting repressive laws on drugs, the State creates its enemy and give it all the means to grow. The benefits are inexistent. What would happen if we would wake up tomorrow and the consumption of drug would be legal, taxed and controlled by the state? Will we all make a fix before going to work? Of course not. Drugs are already at disposal today for those who want to use them. Drugs even represent an attraction for teens, to step aside from adults’ values. Prohibition thus does create more incentives for the consumption.
No positive effect, major collateral damages: prohibition is a total failure.

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