Madam, – The misguided argument put forward by those who support the legalising of drugs is usually based on one of the following propositions: 1.The government could gain revenue from legalising drugs, 2. The “war on drugs” has been lost, 3. Criminal gangs would lose out and 4. Alcohol is as damaging as some illegal drugs.
One fundamental point that seems to have eluded these people is that a society should decide through its laws what it believes is right and wrong and therefore what activities or behaviour should be legal or illegal.
The argument of lost government revenue is therefore irrelevant, as it could equally be made about child prostitution or slavery.
In relation to losing the “war on drugs”, I am not aware of anyone who is arguing that they believe illegal drugs can be eliminated from society. Everyone now accepts that reducing the supply of illegal drugs is a damage limitation exercise, but again, if a society believes it is wrong it should do its best to minimise the problem.
As for criminality, the root cause of this is usually social deprivation, but it is naive to think criminal gangs would be significantly weakened if you legalised drugs for adults. Apart from the fact that the whole underage market for drugs would still be available to them, they would probably be able to get the same drugs cheaper and undercut any legal establishments.
Finally, we have the alcohol argument. There is no disputing the damage that alcohol does in society, but how will it make our society better if we decided to normalise drug-taking as well? It would only make it more normal for people to engage in drug-taking as well as drinking.
Where are the benefits in this? One of your letter-writers (May 13th) pompously puts it, the “Liveline brigade” has got its way. Well that’s democracy and I would much rather have those people in the majority in this country than the “intelligentsia” who believe that legalising drugs would be a positive move for our society. – Yours, etc,