Tuesday 5 July 2011

The Drug Culture



I'm by no means a libertarian in the philosophical sense, having too much evidence available for Original Sin! On the other hand, I think the state takes far too much on itself and should leave people alone to sort out their problems rather more than it does at present. 


I have always been suspicious of the "war on drugs" as an excuse for increasingly authoritarian bossiness. So I was really rather disappointed that the Portuguese effort in decriminalisation appears not to have produced the results claimed for it.

Strange to think that a hundred years ago I could have bought drugs and firearms over the counter with no questions asked yet crime was indubitably a tiny fraction of what it is now. I suppose that people (young men, in particular), were perforce too busy scraping some sort of living rather than bored out of their skulls on social security.

The Devil finds work for idle hands and all that.



Edward Spalton

2 comments:

RMcGeddon said...

Hitchen's said there's no such thing as 'addiction'. Just normal human weakness.
We can either face up to reality and look for a way through our problems sober.
Or follow the preferred option of our nanny state. Keep thousands of lefty luvvy counselers and other bloodsuckers in a well paid job via billions in grants and funding via the 'addiction' scam.

William said...

I'd say, if anything, taking drugs isn't unacceptable enough. Look at the number of junkies wandering around Glasgow city centre in broad daylight. It's embarrassing and yet they don't seem to care. Legalising it would simply increase the base of users who find it acceptable and there would be more of these people to mess up your life.

You need to differentiate between drugs too. There probably isn't an argument against cannabis but there is one against heroin. And so on.

Instead of throwing our hands in the air and just giving up on society, I'd like to see more positive initiatives. I don't think making massive amounts of drugs available to everyone is the way to go.

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