POST SCRIPTS

This issue always makes me want to scream. Prior to 1967 or so we didn't have a drug problem of any significance and the reason was nobody approved of drug use. It was said that drugs would ruin your life, can you imagine? Unfortunately, we can all imagine quite nicely now; the destruction is all around us.

We have seen a reduction in smoking because people get that it's not good for them and because common sense suggests we should not subject others to smoke in enclosed spaces. Societal pressure and education made the difference.
We don't need to legalize drugs to educate our kids or to create societal pressure against drug use. People who use drugs are weak in character and need societal structures that help to keep them from making stupid choices. The breakdown of societal expectations in the late sixties and seventies has caused this problem. A reversal of this trend will turn it back around. Nancy Reagan was right..."just say no" works...no excuses!
I know Libertarians will hate this idea, they have an "I can do anything I want" attitude. To their credit they usually add, "as long as I don't hurt anyone else." The trouble with that is that they never look beyond the end of their own noses to see if destruction has happened. Responsibility at the level of society isn't in their vocabulary.

Three more things Jack:

On Jul 8, 2006, at 6:40 PM, JL wrote:

> During the interview, Anthony admitted that no country in the world
> currently has legalized drugs, although at least two countries,
> Switzerland
> and Holland, have greatly reduced drug laws and drug enforcement.

1) You can look at the USA before 1914--all drugs legal, opiate
addiction at same as, or lower levels than, today.
2) The war on drugs--ramped up federal enforcement and funding of local
enforcement--dates to Nixon in 1970. Before that there was relatively
little enforcement (at least since alcohol prohibition) and thus little
of the negative secondary effects of the war on drugs: excessive
profits, organized crime, violence, and increased strength and
availability of drugs.

> According to a BBC News Story, 28 March, 2002 the legalized heroin
> distribution program was a failure. The study concluded there are now
> 500
> times as many drug addicts in Britain as there were in the 1960s, and
> it is
> in the top five countries worldwide in terms of heroin consumption. The
> article said the UK program failed to address the causes of addiction
> that
> were basically poverty and lack of opportunity to join in mainstream
> society. In a study done in Holland, it was found that since the Dutch
> have
> decriminalized drugs and tried harm reduction or softening of drug
> policy,
> shootings have increased 40%, robberies 62% and violent crime in
> Amsterdam
> reached an all time high in 2001, despite a slight slowing in the rate
> of
> addiction. END

You are leaping to a false conclusion here--Great Britain never had a
nationwide organized and sanctioned "legalized heroin distribution
program." I didn't say so and neither does the article. The article
merely says that the British policy has been a failure. You need to
investigate what that policy was--you'll find it was much like the
American one: prohibition through law enforcement. All I said was that
parts (at least one Northern town) of England had briefly tried heroin
therapy--a doctor provided pharmaceutical heroin to his street addict
patients--and it had helped the patients stabilize their lives and
reduced street crime. Then the British government shut him down, the
patients went back on the streets, their lives fell apart, and the
crime rate went back up. Let me know if you want the documentation.

Your false connection badly misstates the report in the BBC article.
It's not heroin therapy (which they never really had) that failed--it's
the law enforcement drug prohibition that they did and do have that has
increased the number of addicts. The report's emphasis is that
prohibition is a failure, and treatment alone cannot work: drug
addiction has social and economic factors that must also be addressed.
Hence the title, "From War to Work."

The full report is available at http://fpc.org.uk/fsblob/37.pdf

Thank you for directing me to it. Together, we are the solution.

Yours very truly,

James Anthony

Thank you Mr. Anthony for your comments in rebuttal. We try to be fair here and this is why this column is interactive. As time permits I will look for additional facts and review the original story on this subject. Feel free to comment anytime.