| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Will's question (again) | |
| Posted by: | Joe Conneely | |
| Date/Time: | 04/10/13 09:40:00 |
| Per Wikipedia articles other countries that have followed Portugal's example are Spain, Italy and Czech Republic in Europe, with Norway proposing but not yet implementing (Norway's proposals are heroin related making it a more sensitive issue).The Netherlands has got there for marijuana by non-enforcement as upheld by the Courts when cases for possession have been bought by the police. In North America, certain US states have relaxed and gone against federal laws and a heavy debate has been going on in Canada for some years. Many Latin American countries have been more forceful given the devastation drugs have made across their economies in liberalising drug usage. It should be noted that all these regimes are tackling possession on the drugs for personal use with amounts sometimes specified - possession for selling remains an offence, and some only apply to soft drugs (marijuana) versus hard drugs (heroin and cocaine). The decriminalisation for possession for private use and improving support for addicts in all these cases do not from cases I have read about move to a model where the state seeks to legalise and obtain tax revenues from sales of drugs, but have largely been addressing drug epidemics and HIV/overdose fatalities increases in those societies. The costs of drug abuse are also much deeper in assessing the economic arguments - criminalisation and penal detention costs, related crime especially gangs and guns, the deeper effect on certain sectors of society (especially in inner city areas where poverty already exists); and the "winners" who have seen growth and profit from historic policies (both criminals with money laundering and government agencies set up to counter). One of the best books in showing how deep these scars and effects can run is on the Mexican drug wars and the US responses (El Narco by Ioan Grillo - ironically a Welsh journalist working for a Houston newspaper in Mexico!) |