Change We Need-Drug Legalisation

First off, I do not use heroin, crack cocaine, crystal meth, ecstacy, hashish, or any other "illegal" drug. As a Freeman, the word illegal is meaningless to me anyway. I merely wanted to point out that I don't have a dog in this race. As I am a Libertarian, (a fact I only discovered relatively recently), I find myself thinking more broadly these days.

What other people choose to do with or to their bodies and minds is nothing to do with me. It is a choice for them, it is their responsibility.

Everything I know about drugs comes from movies I have watched, or books that I have read. I have no first hand knowledge. Perhaps arrogantly, I always presumed my mind open enough that I could forego the hassle of sticking a needle in my arm, or swallowing LSD to encourage it to think more freely. I never saw the need, or had the urge, to experience alternate realities. My golden rule is: don't knock it until/unless you have tried it. So I continue not to knock it. In my entire life I can not think of a single time when another's drug use has impacted me negatively.

What I do know for sure is that the War on Drugs is a pathetic failure. Billions have been wasted on this endeavour. How many lives lost during its' prosecution? Like all government sponsored "War on [insert any word here]" they cost money & lives and always end in failure. Always.

The Portuguese thought about it all, and decided to defur the feline differently. They decriminalised all drugs in 2001. Time Magazine ran an article on this ground-breaking idea, and the results are quite amazing.

Here's a snippet:

"The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."

Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana."

The most common knee-jerk response is that people would get hurt in the rush to inject, swallow or sniff. The Portuguese approach proves that that thinking is fallacious. Crime nosedives, for a start. Health improves, as fewer cases of HIV/AIDS are reported year on year.

If you remain unconvinced after reading the whole article, please watch the video as Milton Friedman explains it in terms we can all grasp.

My drugs of choice, if you are interested, have sustained me for 32 years. I wouldn't be without them, although I know I could live without them, but choose not to, because I enjoy them all. They are, in no particular order, caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. All bring me health benefits. Some physical, some psychological, and some a combination of the two.

Fake charities, NGO's, various government agencies, and general busybodies queue up to tell me what an utter bastard I am for using these drugs. I ignore them all. This is my body. This is my one life to live, as I see fit.  They can all eat shit and bark at the moon, for all I care. Other people can do as they want. I do not judge them because I have no right to.

One of these days they will understand that they have no right to judge me either.

As long as your actions hurt no-one else, get on with it. Do whatever it is that gets you through the day.

You won't hear me complaining.

CR.