From: homer@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Homer Smith)
Subject: legalization in Britian
Organization: Cornell Theory Center
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 01:30:09 GMT


     I just saw a brilliant show on 60 minutes about the
relegalization of heroin and cocaine in Britain.  Apparently
during the 80's they went back to a hard line position on drugs
like the US, and tried to eradicate drugs through the use of
force, criminal punishment and the police force.  
 
     During this time addiction and crime soared 300 percent, and
with the advent of AIDS, the spread of the disease threatened to
go out of control.
 
     Then they went back to a more civilized policy.  Anyone could
get their drug of choice, pharmacutical, for FREE by prescription
from a doctor.  All they had to do was convince a few people that
they were really an addict and had no intention or ability to quit.

     In fact they have to take weekly urines test to prove that 
they ARE still doing the drug and not selling it to others for
a profit.

     With the drug free and pure, the health of these people 
climbed back to normal levels, a vast majority of them immediately
stopped any criminal activity they were involved in to support their
habit, and the drug dealing in those areas went to 0 because there
was no market for it.
 
     The number of addicts dropped by 300 percent, because there
was no push by addicts to get new people addicted to sell them 
drugs to support
their own habits, the AIDS infection rate is now 1 percent of addicts
rather than 50 percent as it is in the US, and these people are
now all living useful lives  contributing to the GNP, paying taxes,
taking a bite out of crime and going to counseling meetings, not to
get off of drugs, but to verify that they are staying straight of
CRIME.
 
     The drugs are provided through drug stores, often as heroin or
cocaine injected into a cigarette.  The addict provides the cigs,
the drug store provides the drugs free.
 
     It was asked of one doctor, what do you say to people who
say that this is state run drug dealing.  
He said, Yep, and its a good
thing too..  Its no
different that any other state controlled, state inspected and
state run operation.  The quality control is excellent, nay perfect,
and the addicts are all known and can be tracked, and many of them
cut back on their own doses willfully after a time.
 
      He said that 50 percent of addicts get off of drugs by
themselves within the 10 years of start of addiction, and this
program makes sure they stay alive, healthy and productive.  The
remainder stay addicted, but they too stay alive, healthy and
productive.
 
     It was also asked of one ex prostitute what should be said
to people who say 'why should we give drugs to an addict, why
give them what they want, why not just let them suffer?'
 
     Her answer was drugs are given to diabetics and other sufferers,
why not addicts.  Its not a moral problem.  She needs the drug to
live.  Apparently the moralists wish she would die.
 
     My answer is that if you don't give drugs to the addicts,
the addict will come and take it from you in spades.
 
     There seems to be 3 groups here, the criminals, the moralists and
the addicts.  The moralists say that you shouldn't be a drug addict,
and if you are you should be rounded up and shot, or jailed, or made
to suffer, or
otherwise rejected from society.  This might be fine if the moralists
had the fire power to carry out this plan, but they don't and
never will and probably it's in God's plan that it be this way.  
 
     People do not take drugs because they are criminal, nor do
they become addicts because they are criminal, so treating addicts
like criminals is just plain crazy.  Actually its criminal.
 
     So the moralists place all these oh so well meaning rules into
play, no drugs, arrest and incarcerate anyone doing/selling drugs,
or execute them as in Singapore, which then has absolutely no
effect whatsoever on the number of addicts except to increase them,
and in the same breath fosters and breeds the criminal drug trade
to satisfy the needs of the addicts.
 
     Thus the moralists who claim they hate crime so much,
BY ASSIGNING CRIMINALITY TO SOMETHING THAT IS NOT CRIMINAL, DRUG USE,
ARE CREATING MORE CRIME THAN THEY CAN POSSIBLY HANDLE.
 
     Who now has the moral failing, the one who takes drugs, or the
one who can't think and refuses to wake up and smell the roses.

     You will find that where this has gone on long enough, the
moralists are taking a kick back from the criminals for keeping
drugs illegal and the criminals in business.
 
     The moralists have it justified by, well they are all criminals
anyhow, let them get addicted, I might as well survive better for it,
I can always use the money as I am a righteous person.

     The Lord reserves a special place in Hell for the Righteous.

     I personally believe that there is hope on the horizon about
this drug war thing.  
 
     The pure stupidity of the matter is beyond men of good
conscience, and the true criminals who are benefiting from the
drug war and drugs being illegal can only run their scam for so long
until people get incensed and burn them on a cross where they belong.
 
     Drugs and marijhuana are not illegal because the vast majority
of Americans believe that they should be so, they are illegal because
a few jokers passed the laws through congress with the promise
of kickbacks to the law makers.  
 
     Homer