

The Alternative World Drug Report - fuzzix
http://www.countthecosts.org/alternative-world-drug-report

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CharlieA
The biggest barrier IMO to a legal drug economy, with regulation and
legitimate corporate players, is reversing years and years of learned stigma
that "drugs are evil". And the incredibly irony here of the "please think of
the children" mentality, is that it's reinforcing this feedback loop, and I
don't see any way to break out of it.

The government can't legalise drugs because of the massive community backlash
there would be. So the continued illegality, of the trade sees it linked to
criminal activity on a macro scale (terrorist groups / bikies etc.) as well as
at a local level (home invasions / thefts / pharma. raids etc.) not to mention
the violence and the risk of overdose that prompts teary eyed parents to come
on the news and espouse about the evils of drugs, leading to the (admittedly
fairly compelling) conclusion that stamping out drugs would be a good thing.
And that, of course, means the government can't legalise drugs because of the
massive community backlash there would be...

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jfrm
There is a middle ground with decriminalization.

[http://www.countthecosts.org/resource-library/drug-policy-
po...](http://www.countthecosts.org/resource-library/drug-policy-portugal-
benefits-decriminalizing-drug-use)

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Nursie
Good luck with that. The evidence has been mounting up (and been pretty
obvious) for years now, but nobody in Government is willing to climb down from
their 'tough on crime' stance for long enough to do anything that's actually
useful here.

Plenty of ex-officials, sometimes within days of their standing down, have
sensible things to say, but until someone that's actually in a position of
power gets their head out of their arse and does something about it.... yup,
we're all still paying for a violent, pointless exercise that maximises the
societal harm it allegedly seeks to mitigate.

~~~
Wawl
I found this paper about drug policy change in Switzerland [1] very
interesting.

The country was pushed toward evidence-based policies by a very large and
visible drug scene, which had serious health consequences.

Some states started trying different approaches and fueled federal debates
(The US system is similar to the swiss one). They did it even as far-right
parties like SVP showed increased support, which caused almost schizophrenic
results. For instance in 2008 "a resounding 68 percent of the population voted
in favor of the new narcotics law based on four pillars, which included
heroin-assisted therapy, while in the same referendum, only 33 percent
endorsed decriminalization of cannabis"

[1] [http://www.countthecosts.org/resource-
library/mountaintops-w...](http://www.countthecosts.org/resource-
library/mountaintops-what-world-can-learn-drug-policy-change-switzerland)

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disbelief
Does the 270 Million worldwide drug users number seem a bit low to anyone
else? I'm also wondering if that means "daily users" or "addicts" or "people
convicted of a drug-related offense"?

~~~
CharlieA
A bit more detail further in the report: "The UNODC estimates, conservatively,
that between 155 and 270 million people worldwide, or 3.5% to 5.7% of
15-64-year¬olds, used illicit substances at least once in the last year.
Global lifetime usage figures probably approach one billion"

~~~
robin_reala
What does illicit mean in this situation? Illegal in the country the drug was
taken in at the time?

~~~
refurb
If it's an UN study, it probably includes all drugs that the UN regards as
needing "control".

<http://www.unodc.org/>

