Legalise heroin

I know I said my blog posts would be based on current events; but let's be honest - when is a sensible drugs policy ever even up for discussion? I'd be waiting forever. Now I could start small and discuss the decriminalisation of cannabis, similar to the Dutch model (and even this small step is only supported by the green party out of all mainstream British parties), but I'm going to crank it up a notch (or two) and instead discuss the full legalisation of all drugs, but to save time I'll only discuss heroin.

Firstly I can assure you all that I am not a heroin addict and I have never used heroin and wouldn't do so even if it was legal. It's a myth that you need to use drugs to condone legalising them; I believe that legalisation would benefit both the addict, and also society as a whole which includes those who would, quite sensibly, never touch the stuff. I'll start by explaining why legalisation is the best solution to help drug addicts:

Heroin can kill, and it can do so for a variety of reasons. The most frequent reason for heroin use to kill directly is overdose, and overdoses are far more likely to occur under prohibition. This is because there are no regulations on the black market. To make their heroin go futhur and to increase profits, drug dealers often mix heroin with other substances. Sometimes this may kill outright, for example there was a case in Bristol of heroin being mixed with cement as many addicts dying as a result of this. But it also massively increases the risk of an overdose; when you don't know whether your gram of heroin is 0% pure, 100% pure on anywhere in between - how can you possibly give yourself the correct dosage? It is often said that heroin is so dangerous because the difference between a normal dose and a deadly dose is so close. However in their pure forms it is actually easier to overdose on paracetemol than on heroin! If addicts knew that their heroin was pure everytime they bought it, they would find it easier to guage the appropiate dosage and as a results deaths would fall dramatically. Additionally, clean needles could be provided - preventing HIV and hepatitus from spreading, again reducing the deaths linked to drugs significantly.

There is a lot of debate about whether the price of heroin would rise or fall if it was legalised. At the moment the typical price of heroin is £40 for a gram, and the average purity is somewhere around 40%. In contrast, the NHS can produce 100% pure heroin for £6 a gram, which means the black market price is 35 times steeper. Obviously the government would tax the drug excessively and drive the price up: but heroin dealers could never compete with the government on this one. The black market is a dangerous business with prison sentences being risked, or even murders from rival drug gangs. These risks are factored into the price, driving them upwards. Plus even if legal heroin somehow became more expensive, the addict would still prefer to use clean and safe heroin, with a clean needle, than resort to the black market alternative. In this country alcohol and cigarettes are legal: do you buy these from the black market? Even if they were offered tax free, nobody in their right mind would buy them. Overall I feel confident that legalised heroin would be available cheaper than on the black market anyway. For the addict the lower price may again save lives; currently most addicts inject the drug because it is the most cost-effecient way of taking it. However, if cheaper there is a good chance that more people would instead smoke heroin, which has never caused a death.

Addiction is a big reason for heroin being illegal, yet alcohol is the only substance on the planet that can kill somebody outright from withdrawal. This isn't to say that heroin withdrawal is trivial, obviously, but if we can live under a society where alcohol is legal it doesn't then seem quite so unplausible for heroin to be legalised also. The fact is that if legalised, heroin addiction wouldn't be such a problem; with clean heroin being provided, and the extensive presence of drug rehabilitation clinics (funded by the taxes on drugs) which would help the addict and treat their addiction as a medical issue rather than a criminal one.

The most common argument against legalising heroin appears to be that it would normalise it and increase the number of addicts. This seems logically and empirically unfounded; I'm sure everybody in society is aware that a drug called heroin exists, and that it is dangerous. That would still be the case if legalised, maybe it would be easier to get hold of - but usage would surely only go up by the amount of people who currently want to do heroin, but can't because they ca't get hold of it. How many is that?! If anybody wants to do heroin, knowing the risks involved, they'll damn well have found their heroin by now. I have faith in people to understand that just because heroin is legal, it doesn't mean it is a good idea to start using it. To be absolutely sure of this I propose that drugs education is taught in all schools from the age of 10, and that this drugs education is based on objective facts instead of fear tactics that indirectly lead to deaths from lack of real education and awareness. Crucially, heroin was decriminalised in Portugal a decade ago, and all evidence suggests that heroin use has actually decreased (as well as crime and deaths related to drug abuse.)

For the non using taxpayer it means you're not funding police enforcement of prohibition, nor are you funding the prisons to detain them, which would save millions when it comes to heroin or billions when it comes to drugs as a whole. At the same time the taxes generated from selling heroin in a controlled way would create affluence in society because the government could keep this money and lower taxes elsewhere because of it - and when everyone then has more money they'll spend it on cars or whetever and the economy will grow. Why are we choosing for this money to go into the hands of evil drug dealers instead? And as touched upon earlier money generated would go towards rehabilitation clinics where you can go if you're fed up of taking heroin and just want to stop, and go back into the workforce as a normal citizen (which again would help the economy, if people were working rather than sitting about in prison or even dying, because of prohibition.) This is what a desperate user would choose, rather than mugging people, because controrary to the medias portray of heroin addicts, they don't enjoy mugging people, and want an alternative. This also links to the earlier point of lower prices: which means that heroin addicts would be less likely to mug or burgle than they would be under prohibition.

Other benefits to society would be the elimination of organised gangs within the UK, and a reduction in drug barrens from abroard importing substances into the country. It would also produce jobs from those who grow the drugs, produce the drugs and sell the drugs (I don't want drugs to be used anywhere; I believe in designated areas for consumption), additionally this drugs policy could even help other countries such as Afghanistan as firstly our troops would stop their destructive policy of destroying their opium fields, and destroying their livelyhood, but instead we could trade with them freely and fairly - giving them profits which could be used to boost their infastructure, to to prosper as a nation. This links strongly with the fact that I want free trade with all nations, at all times; and that I don't support military intervention abroard.

Finally (yes, I'll stop soon) this is a case of civil liberties. Should the government stop somebody with cancer from smoking? Or someone with diabetes from eating burgers, should it criminalise self-harm, and so on. I'm going to end this post with a quotation I rather like:

"It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve." – Henry George