[jambutty]

Alcohol is just as much an addictive drug as hard drugs WillowTheWhisp. It just takes longer and more of it as any alcoholic would testify to, if they were able.

If our police force were, as is often stated, the best in the world, the pushers and dealers would all be languishing in jail. But the reality is that pushers and dealers ply their trade with as close to impunity as you can get.

The way to solve the drug problem is two fold. Destroy the pushers and dealers market, which is not happening. Stop the pushers and dealers from getting a supply, which happens from time to time. Although those in the know reckon that barely 10% is intercepted.

I doubt very much if an ordinary non-drug using person wakes up one morning with the thought in mind that later that day they will shoot up with heroin. Most if not all will fall into the drug habit by accident or coercion and that makes them as much a victim as the owner of a house that is burgled.

As entwisi has stated a drug addict cannot be forced off the drug, s/he has to want to do it and thus s/he will need help. Thus the issue of drugs should come with counselling and positive help in getting off the drug. As for those that do not want to come off drug addiction, are we just going to go on letting them commit crimes to feed their habit, or are we going to give them their fix and thus remove the need to rob? And at the same time destroy the pushers and dealers market.

In parallel with this philosophy we need to EDUCATE the young of the dangers of addiction with seriously explicit films and lectures. Frighten them into seeing the reality of drug taking.

As I understand it, Afghanistan is the world’s major supplier of opium and pharmaceutical companies buy some of it legitimately to produce it’s by products for legitimate medical use. The Afghan farmers are being encouraged and helped to grow other crops but sadly the world trade is such that they do not get a fair price for their new crops so they revert back to poppies where they know that they can make a decent living. Of course some are bullied by the drug barons into growing poppies rather than other crops but that is the power of the drug barons.

If the World Bank would buy ALL the opium product at a guaranteed price of at least 20% above what the drug barons would pay then surely the farmers would go along with that. Would you sell your wares for £100 when you could get £120 or more from someone else? In order to prevent the drug barons from fighting back and intimidating the farmers it would need the UN to offer them protection until an Afghan army could do the job. The upshot of this would be to deny the drug barons a source of illegal drugs, the farmers would make a decent living and Afghanistan as a whole would benefit.

With no supply and no market the illegal drugs industry would hopefully collapse.

There is also another plus side to controlling the illegal drugs industry and that is no more syringes discarded where kids can find them.

Anyone who has ever bought a cheap something from a guy on the street or in the pub is as much a part of the problem as the dealer and addict. If, and it is a BIG IF, if the general public refused to buy that dirt cheap telly, or whatever, the junkie would not be able to sell it.

One final point. This idea of giving drug users heroin on the NHS is currently being trailed in London and a couple of other places and so far the results are very encouraging. In that crime is down in those areas and some addicts are seeing the error of their ways and taking positive steps to get off drugs.