[fredley]

Sadly this is the current UK Government's approach to many things. Drugs are bad, so must be banned (no chance of following the rest of the Western World's route to legalisation any time soon). Porn is bad, so must be banned. Never mind anyone who wants to access either of those things can get them easily, and banning them is hugely expensive and criminalises people who would probably benefit much more from some form of help or counselling. Such is our way.

[elcct]

It is more along the line "we like drugs, let's not plebs have it. we like porn, let's not plebs have it" and so on...

[vixen99]

Any possible considerations of the substantial arguments against your view seem to escape you. Moreover you pull the straw man trick by putting arguments in the mouth of dissenters to your view. This is an immensely difficult issue with strong arguments on either side; please don't trivialize it with airy condescension towards those seriously taking on board the consequences of decriminalization (for instance: http://www.dea.gov/pr/multimedia-library/publications/speaki... and there's tons more). They are not idiots.

[jdietrich]

Our government's drug policy is not informed, it is not considered and it is not reasonable.

Exhibit A is the sacking of Professor David Nutt, who was the most senior government advisor on drugs. His scientific advice contradicted government policy, so he was replaced with someone who would toe the party line. The Home Secretary did not consult the Science Minister on this decision. After Nutt's sacking, five other members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs resigned in protest.

The government has shown utter contempt for evidence on the harms of drugs. They have consistently rejected scientific evidence when it contradicts their political ideology. Their reasoning for criminalisation is facile and circular. An examination of the relationship between the Home Office and the ACMD shows this with absolute clarity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt

[fredley]

In a short comment I don't have time to present much of substance, but I get your point. Different communities have different problems with drugs, and are affected in subtly different ways. Different measures have different effectiveness in different situations (if supply can be controlled easily for example, banning drugs outright makes much more sense). I don't think legalisation is the perfect solution, but as far as we know[1], it's the least bad solution so far, and the current 'ban it, and criminalise users' is doing more harm than good. There are many other factors such as education to take into account too. I am not suggesting legalisation is a silver bullet.

[1]: https://mic.com/articles/110344/14-years-after-portugal-decr...