I still wouldn’t agree with them on libertarian grounds, but the harm equation would be strongly balanced towards prohibition. Some drugs ARE harmful.

But that is a fantasy world. As David said, “It is not possible to control the market in drugs”, and he is right. Any common drug is available to the average person within a matter of hours. Most people who want drugs have already got a supplier, and if that supplier gets caught, they’ll find a new one.

Since prohibition cannot deliver significant harm reduction, the harm argument fails. And there’s never been a question that the drug war violates civil liberties.

Sorry to see you go, David. It’s been fun! (and I mean that sincerely.) I do not expect you to be unduly influenced by our arguments, but do not go away believing you have won the debate. Would a genuinely neutral observer think you had?

The growing number of people joining the reform movement seem to be saying NO.

“Absolutely bluntly, it is not possible to control the market in drugs-legal or illegal.”

So why is the government oppressing me in order to chip away at some socialist fantasy?

The government has no right to violate my personal sovereignty in order to attempt controlling drug abuse. I shouldn’t be forced to pay for drug addicts. At the same time, I shouldn’t be forced into prison for using drugs.

The gov’t obtained this ‘marijuana’ patent in 2003 yet still maintains cannabis has no medical value?
Sounds like uncle scam is pulling our chain again!

Remember ’social acceptability’ and ‘what the bible/god or jc thinks’ are not rights, only opinions, and don’t count where the rule of law and our rights are concerned!

It IS possible to change the culture of use around any particular drug, it takes enormous effort and it takes time and community commitment. In terms of reduced personal and social ill health I say that effort is worthwhile.

Some countries are attempting that change now, in relation to tobacco. That cultural change will be imperfect, some people will continue to smoke tobacco, however silly that is.

As for the suggestion that tobacco use is NOT normalised, you are in the realms of fantasy. When I was last in Lithuania I was told that 90 % of the population smoked tobacco. Bulgaria when I visted was worse. Until fairly recently, tobacco use and advertising was everywhere in US and European society. The tobacco companies are fiocussing enromous efforts on the third world. China has a huge tobacco addiction problem. Please get a grip on reality.

I did not introduce a new word I picked up on one from the plans & objectives of the legalisation lobby. The three core words driving the campaign, are Trivialise, Normalise, Legalise. I ask you why?

It has to be a more effective reason than supposedly taking out some criminality. It has to deal with the social effects of normalisation. You do not like the word because it and the social consequences of it, are difficult to deal with in debate. I am forcing you to address uncomfortable truths. You are dealing with them very badly. So badly that I am quite enjoying this. Unfortunately, you have taken up too much of my time.

I’m not going to address at length the repeated times you keep using the nirvana fallacy, other than to point out that you seem unable to stop.

I’ve noticed that you’ve added another word to the legalization crowd that we don’t use: “normalization.” You act like it’s a necessary part of legalization and that just isn’t true. Drugs can be legal and regulated and not be normalized.

And as long as you keep bringing up the tobacco model, here’s a prime example: Tobacco is legal, but not normalized, and we, as a society have done an incredible job in reducing the harms from tobacco because it’s legal. Look at the strides made in the past 20 years in understanding the harms of tobacco, educating people, and helping people quit who are having problems with it.

That’s the power of what we can do with a legalized market, where we control the drug rather than giving it to criminals to control. And yes, evil is prospering while deluded men stand by and do nothing. Every day we continue this misbegotten drug war, we fuel the violence world-wide of drug cartels, the Taliban, and street gangs, making their efforts extremely profitable and helping them recruit additional members to their ranks. Every drug dealer we arrest creates an automatic lucrative job opening which is filled, increasing the ranks of criminals, even as the arrested ones have their criminality reinforced in prison. The vast sums of black market money corrupt law enforcement officials and government officials, and we destroy our inner cities and the family structure of the poor. Additionally, in terms of racial justice, prohibition is the worst public policy since slavery.

You’re going to have to show me a whole lot more than your gut feeling that a lot more people will be addicted through legalization. Even one iota of evidence would be a start.

You say:

That may well be because many of those arguing are illegal drug users themselves. (Indeed I know some very noisy legalisers are).

Nice try, but as it turns out some of every single occupation and persuasion are illegal drug users, so your point is lost. And look at the overall group of legalizers, including some noisy ones like Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, William F. Buckly, Jr., Walter Cronkite, or the clergy in various churches calling for an end to the drug war. Not big drug users.

The fact is that drug users have no problem getting drugs now. That’s not what they’re looking for. They’re looking to stop the damage of prohibition.

If you really care about the problems of addicts, then for God’s sake stop turning it over to criminals to deal with them.

I joined in on this debate because of the nonesense about taking criminality away through legalisation which caught my eye.

You say no one is arguing for absolute liberalism, that is playing with words.

What is (mostly) argued for around the world, is the putting of the illegal drugs (or any other undiscovered substance that people may for the time being, wish to use “recreationally”) on the same or a similar footing to that of tobacco & alcohol. That is what Soros argues for and that argument is what he and others in big business, finance. Naturally, big business wants a captive audience for legal use-reinforcing substances. It uses drug users and activists as the footsoldiers of the debate.

Let us agree that is what is (mostly) suggested then move on.

The reasons for that argument range from absolute liberalism, the freedom to do what one wishes with one’s own body regardless of the wider social consequences, better quality control through regulated manufacturer, and limiting the collateral damage and the criminality of the current mechanisms. (The unintended consequences I think da Costa called them).

The wildest argument is that by legalising supply and lowering the price criminality can be kept out of supply.

As I have pointed out, in the UK, under the British System, we supplied heroin to almost anyone who could convince a doctor they needed it, that action did not remove a criminal parallel market, nor did it remove the harms of heroin.

We currently give methadone to addicts, in huge quantities and at substantial public expense, it does not remove the harms and the deaths. It does not remove addiction, it does not remove the consequences to children brought up in addictive households. It does not stop those who are so supplied continuing to deal in methadone, heroin or any other drug. It does not make most of those so supplied, suitable for regular work, it does not cure the addiction. It is not what most of those addicts say they want.

Very few of those arguing for legalisation on the tobacco/alcohol model deal with or are honest about the wider social consequences and costs of normalising these substances. They fail to project the idea forward to the kind of society we would get. That may well be because many of those arguing are illegal drug users themselves. (Indeed I know some very noisy legalisers are).

What the legalisation lobby also fails to deal with is that most of the wider population do not want to see wholesale legalisation and of those that do and who are not users themselves, they often do so on a false prospectus, the blatantly silly allegation that legalisation will take criminality out of supply.

And no I do not make any money out of my activism on the other side of the debate. It actually costs me substantially. Evil prospers while good men stand by and do nothing.

You say

“I argue against absolute liberalism in relation to drug use, that is, the normalisation of the use of any particular harmful substance that is for the time being fashionable, because societies only work where individual liberty, to do anything one wishes, is to some extent limited by social rules.”

I agree with this; no one is arguing FOR “absolute liberalism” when it comes to drugs regulation.

-We aim to end the criminalization of personal use of currently illegal drugs by responsible adults (‘adults’ meaning people over 21 years of age, ‘responsible’ meaning not driving drugged, not at work drugged, etc).

-We aim to actually regulate the manufacture/distribution/sale of currently illegal drugs, rather than leaving the control of drug manufacture/distribution/sale in the hands of organized crime cartels.

-We aim to end unlawful search and seizures by zealot-like law enforcement agents looking to score cash or property for their own departments (it really does happen!).

Last but not least, we fight for the restoration of a persons’ right to put into their own bodies whatever they wish, be it “harmful substances” or not that harmful, that are “for the time being fashionable” or unfashionable.
Fact: A person owns their own body.
If you disagree with this, then maybe you think that you own my body or are in some way personally responsible for it.
Know this – what a responsible adult decides to injest/inject/inhale into their own body is no concern of yours, unless it is you who are deciding what to put in your own body.

I reject your obvious intentions to nanny adults other than yourself; perhaps you should have some children (unless you already do) or start a day care so that you can use your motherly instincts to benefit more impressionable pupils.

I suspect you cannot be persuaded to see the drugs issue as a ‘personal responsibility of each individual’ type of issue – perhaps you have something to gain or maintain (economically/financially) by staying your course?