Legalisation of drugs... putting them into the hands of the government

[pa___ul3]

There's been a lot of talk about the Lib Dem's ideas on legalising drugs for personal use in the UK. A lot of the points made I agree with, the control of them would surely make them safer and would go, in my opinion, a long way to tackling gang crime in the UK which I feel are driven by drug trafficking and selling.
That said, Andyhughes made a point before about alcohol "But while the government derives such massive revenues from the alcohol taxes, they will do little or nothing to address these issues - moeny is far more important than health and well-being, hence the reluctance of any government to address the issues in any meaningful way, with a view to changing sociial attitudes to alcohol."
A point which many people agree with.

My question is, should the UK legalise recreational drug use and provide legal outlets, we must assume there would be heavy taxes on them also, would we be at risk of going down the same path? Where the government (perhaps) uses it as a reliable source of revenue with only a second thought on the health issues?

[madmaggot]

Haven't we got enough doped up/drunken idiots without the government implying by legalisation that drugs will not harm the health?

[mungbeanz]

madmaggot - legalising drugs would not imply that drugs woudl not harm their health. Cigarettes are legal and they are probably one of the most horrid, pointless things in existance.

[ummmm]

And not everyone takes things to the extreme....

[madmaggot]

So why is it that youngsters take 'legal highs' and state that they must be ok because they are legal?

[mungbeanz]

They don't. They are just under the misconseption that they are. Usually legal highs have not been specifically made legal, just not yet made illegal. A big difference.

[VHG]

>>>If people are living such wretched lives that the oblivion of alcohol or heroin addicition are seen as preferable alternatives

That has ALWAYS been the case and you will never change it.

I just watched "Who do you think you are" about Alan Carr and his great grandad was in India in the Army in the mid 1850s.

It was mind numbingly boring and the only way to relieve the boredom was to get drunk.

Drunkedness was a huge preblem and his grandad was busted down to private for drunkedness.

If you look back through history many people have drunk to excess. The Salvation Army campaigned against it, the Cadbury family (quakers) sold drinking chocolate as an alternative to drink, there was Gin (mothers ruin) the cause of many women becoming prostitutes to pay for the gin.

I am not saying it is right, but all through history people drank to get through the daily grind.

My first wife, an unhappy woman, drank herself to death, and she was dead before she was 50.