In response to Neil McKeganey: Dopey logic of a legaliser,
Michael Staples wrote:
I would have less problem with legalisation of drugs if I didn’t have grandchildren.
I have sat in court watching a succession of pathetic recidivist petty criminals appearing. The point is that many of them are certified off sick as being unable to work because of their drug habit and live on benefits (plus theft). How much does the taxpayer spend through the NHS on such people? How many lives have been ruined where susceptible people use that mild recreational drug cannabis and change their brain for ever?
Brad James wrote:
That’s the question I put to people here, who want to decriminalise and legalise marijuana. They will say it’s harmless, which is debatable; or they’ll use the libertarian and utilitarian argument as noted in this essay; or they’ll point to another substance that alters perceptions and impairs motor abilities but is legal – alcohol. ‘Oh! You don’t want to legalise marijuana? Well, alcohol is worse, and it’s legal! What about that?’
‘Well,’ I ask them, ‘agreed that alcohol has worse effects. So, please tell me: how is making legal yet another substance with psychoactive and motor skill effects a net good for society?’
They don’t have an answer for that one, even those folks whose perceptions have allegedly been expanded by smoking weed.
Faramond wrote:
It’s all very well talking about decriminalising it, but legal or not there are people out there making serious decisions when their brain is addled with this stuff. Several years ago it was discovered that the nine separate toilets in the House of Commons had traces of cocaine in them – and we wonder why politics is in the shoddy state it is. As FZ pointed out way back:
Captain Scarlet wrote:
I crossed swords with Hugo Rifkind last week over the Times’s current campaign to legalise drug use. He seemed to be under the impression that crime would go down and that unfettered drug use would be better than the current situation. Mind-bogglingly stupid.
