Pubdate: Sun, 22 May 2005
Source: Sunday Herald, The (UK)
Copyright: 2005 Sunday Herald
Contact:  http://www.sundayherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/873
Author: Neil McKeganey
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

MAKING IT OK TO TAKE DRUGS WON'T MAKE TAKING DRUGS OK

Guest Vocals: Neil McKeganey Believes Legalisation Is Not The Way To Tackle 
Scotland's Drug Problem

I RECENTLY lunched with a journalist from a leading broadsheet. We were 
talking generally about drugs when he said that, as far as he was 
concerned, all of the harmful effects of illegal drugs were a direct result 
of the illegality of the substances involved. But would legalisation offer 
a solution to the drug problem?

In the case of cannabis there is a view that this is a drug which, in 
itself, causes little or no harm. Yet as a result of possessing, selling or 
growing the drug you can experience the significant pain of acquiring a 
police record, being fined or receiving a substantial prison sentence.

But is cannabis really the harmless drug that we have taken it for? Recent 
research from Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands has caused 
many people to revise their opinion of our favourite, and supposedly least 
harmful, illegal drug. The Dutch study followed 4000 people over a 
three-year period and found that those who developed serious psychotic 
symptoms were 23 times more likely to have used cannabis. In the Swedish 
study, those who used cannabis were found to be four times more likely to 
develop schizophrenia than their non cannabis-smoking peers, while the New 
Zealand study appeared to show that the younger the age at which cannabis 
use was initiated, the greater the likelihood that an individual would go 
on to experience significant mental-health problems.

These are sobering findings when you think that cannabis is used by more 
than three million people in the UK . When you consider that it is a 
powerful drug that is often used in large dosages by young people, whose 
brains are still in the process of developing, in a way it would be 
surprising if it were not causing some of the users serious psychological harm.

But if cannabis is not the harmless drug that we have taken it to be, what 
about heroin and cocaine? These are the drugs that the Home Office regards 
as causing the most damage to individual users and to society at large. How 
much of that harm arises as a result of the drugs illegality? Senior police 
officers are among those who say that if you legalise heroin and cocaine, 
addicts would not have to turn to crime to fund their drug habit and, as a 
result, we would see a marked reduction in crime across the country.

But what would be the likely impact of legalising heroin and cocaine? One 
possible consequence would be an increase in the number of people using 
those drugs. People who favour legalisation argue there would be no 
significant increase in use under full legalisation. However, almost all of 
the drugs that you can think of that are currently illegal are a good deal 
more pleasurable to use, at least initially, than alcohol and tobacco. As a 
result, if you made heroin and cocaine legal, you have to wonder what would 
stop many more people at least experimenting with their use.

While only a proportion of these people will go on to develop longer-term 
problems associated with drug use, these are highly addictive substances, 
therefore that proportion could be quite large . Under a fully legalised 
regime then, whilst the level of crime might drop substantially, the costs 
to health care may increase massively.

Celebrities such as Boy George, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Ozzy Osbourne and 
numerous others have shown us that even where individuals can pay for the 
drugs they are using, they can still get into serious difficulty. Each of 
these individuals will have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds to bring 
about their eventual recovery. For most addicts that would be a cost that 
would have to be met by the nation's health and social care services.

Illegal drugs have the capacity to bring limited pleasure and limitless 
pain. If all drugs were legal the pleasure for some would undoubtedly 
increase, but it would be naive in the extreme to suppose that the harm 
would be eradicated as a result of legalisation.

At the moment, in Scotland, there are around 50,000 heroin addicts. If 
heroin were legally available, we may see less crime but we might also see 
the number of users move closer to the 250,000 mark, which is the estimated 
number of Scots who are already thought to have a problem with alcohol.

It is a sobering thought to ponder what life in Scotland would look like 
with a quarter of a million heroin addicts.
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MAP posted-by: Beth