As Iāve eluded to a bit previously, Iām not exactly a straight kind of guy. Iāve dabbled with various things, and will more likely than not do so again in the future.
My views on legality are a bit more confused. I strongly believe that āthe war on drugsā has been an utter fucking failure. One that has caused damage that far outweighs any ābenefitsā it may have done. Iām unsure whether Iād argue all drugs should be āLegalisedā, but perhaps fall more on the side of Decriminalised.
That said, Iām not a huge believer in a lot of the scare stories around legalisation. I donāt really believe that it will lead to a mass rush of people suddenly becoming compulsive abusers of various narcotics. The obvious point, is that there are a number of drugs that are legal, and people choose not to indulge in those. Also, there are a number of articles doing the rounds at the moment discussing how younger generations are actually shunning drink & drugs in larger numbers than previous generations.
I donāt believe that it will see a massive increase in ākidsā taking drugs, if anything I think it will see a decrease. The reason kids (read teens) take drugs, is that itās a lot harder to get alcohol underage now than it was previously - even compared to when I was a teen.
Are there potential health concerns related to the use of narcotics? Well yes, of course. Itād be daft to ignore this. However, there are plenty of other things legally available that cause health issues, be that cigarettes, booze or even unhealthy foods. We havenāt, yet, banned those. A regulated industry could, imo, work to alleviate the worst parts of this. Firstly, people will actually know what they are getting. The more dangerous strains of things can be phased out. And heck, itās not as if making these things illegal is stopping people from taking them. So right now, all that money is going straight into crime, so there is no public compensation for the health issues that the NHS has to deal with. Tax revenue could help with this.
And, as I touched on above, it will absolutely kick the legs out from underneath the criminal/gang aspects of the drugs trade. If big companies do get involved, there is absolutely no way 99% of drug lords would be able to compete.
Just to clarify, I am not and do not encourage other people to take drugs. I donāt think it is particularly big or clever. It can be fun, but it can be a fucking nightmare. I just want to mitigate the harm as much as possible, in the most sensible way.