If we remove the law enforcement aspects of the drugs problem, which are potentially making things worse, then we can examine the problems caused by drugs. So depending on the drug type, we can say that people probably fall into the following broad categories with associated risks:
- Casual users
- Regular users
- Addicted users
Casual users: casual users are recreational users that look forward to a weekend of parting or a social gathering or just solo/couple use in front the TV/film etc.
Risks: risk of death or illness, risk of implication in someone else's death or illness, for illegal drugs - risk of contact with criminals, risk of contact with law enforcement, risk of prosecution leading onto problems throughout life with criminal record, knock on effects for the family and friends, risk of loss of job and income. Risk of addiction.
Regular users: Those that are recreational users, but use on a more regular basis e.g. 3-5 times a week
Risks: increased risk of all that apply to casual users.
Addicted users: Those that require a drug to physically function, to live and breath and get through the day.
Risks: increased risk of all that apply to regular users. Plus increased risk to the general public through the need to find money to pay for the drugs (if illegal), by burglary and thefts etc, ie increased crime rate.
So, the increased risk to the public and tax payer, which is where law enforcement comes into play is actually amongst the addicted users group, criminalising casual and regular users is creating a worse problem because of the effects of criminalisation.
Then we could categories the drugs themselves into addictiveness:
- Alcohol, tobacco and illegal Class A being the top addiction drugs (psychedelic drugs are not addictive in my view and should not be in this category), addictive prescription drugs are a big problem for the user and families, but not so much for society as they can be controlled through the health system and addicts do not need to commit crime to feed the habit.
- Everything else is classified an non-risky.
Therefore given a very rudimentary classification of the impact of drugs on society and where the most resources should be implemented it would appear that law enforcement should concentrate on the most addictive Class A, alcohol and tobacco and everything else should be legalised. Alcohol & tobacco could be made available to everyone on a token system to restrict consumption, Cannabis could be used as a way to wean people off Alcohol whilst providing some of the similar effects, without the associated destructiveness.
Do this for a period of 3-5 years to get some stats, then start drawing some conclusions.