Drugs: Common Perceptions Do Not Account For The Reality
Coca Cola, the world’s best-selling soft drink, contained more than trace amounts of cocaine until their factory processing improved in 1919, and is still flavoured with residues extracted from the cocaine producing coca leaf. Imagine what would happen if the prospect of drug criminalisation was used in other situations: people being punished for eating fast food, having unprotected sex, consuming alcohol, smoking tobacco or drinking sugary drinks. The notion is absurd in a self-governing state, but in the case of drugs, criminalisation is accepted as normal.
It seems logical that decriminalising drugs would be an incentive to increased consumption and harm. Surely, it’s reasonable to imagine that drug takers will consume even more drugs if the risk of punishment disappears. Criminalising the user, as we still do in Britain, is the exception and not the rule in many regions and some of the best research available indicates that the criminalisation of the user does not affect consumption rate. So, the justification for criminalisation is not grounded in fact, it’s grounded in ideological rationale.
The documented effect, in places like Portugal which has abolished all criminal penalties for personal drug possession and provided therapy instead of prison sentences, is a drop in the number of overdose deaths and HIV infections through syringe sharing when heroin is consumed. People are also more likely to call for medical help in cases of overdose, as they don’t fear legal repercussions.
The writer and government policy analyst Steve Rolles argued that legalising and regulating drug use would improve drug user’s safety; “the less risky, less potent products are more available, and the higher risk products are increasingly less available or not available at all”. A similar black-market phenomenon occurred during Prohibition in 1920–1933, when the US banned alcohol. Whilst alcohol was banned the consumption of spirits saw an upsurge. Afterward, when Prohibition ended, the consumer market shifted toward lower strength alcoholic beverages like wine and beer.
As well as the widely recognised status of decriminalisation in Portugal, the Netherlands and Spain, there are already many states in America and provinces in Canada where cannabis has been legalised and many other countries will follow suit.
According to a 2016 report, it’s estimated that 2.1 million people used cannabis in the UK alone. In 2015, a petition to parliament called for ‘the production, sale and use of cannabis to be legalised’ and received 236,995 signatures. The government responded with “cannabis is a harmful drug that can damage human health.” Since, a YouGov poll found that three quarters of British people support the use of the drug on medical grounds. It’s also significant that nearly 50% of the public support its recreational use. The advocacy to decriminalise and legalise cannabis has been strong; with what little research is available, it has been found to improve many health issues such as seizures, multiple sclerosis, sleep disorders and arthritis. Another benefit to society as opposed to the drug dealers from full legalisation is the raising of tax revenues; Colorado has raised nearly a billion dollars in taxes (amusingly called not the gold, but the ‘green rush’, due to the rush to grow, buy and make money from it) since 2014 through marijuana sales. With many beneficiaries including schools.
Cannabis is still presently a class B drug in the UK, even though evidence of its benefits is so compelling that it has become legalised or decriminalised in many ‘drug progressive’ nations around the world. The legalisation of cannabis has also opened the door to re-examine the possible medical benefits of many other illegal substances like psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, MDMA and DMT. It is criminal to be locked in a cage for these medicines. The first new studies in over 30 years are revealing a lot about the potential healing benefits of psychedelics and the benefits to mental health transformation. With 1 in 4 people in the UK reporting experiencing depression each year (2017 mind.org.uk statistics), mental health is a growing problem and antidepressants continue to be ineffective for up to half of the people who take them.
Psychedelics can be harmful, which is exactly why decriminalisation or legalisation is necessary. The only known risk psychedelic users face are ‘bad trips’, sometimes confused with what experts call ‘ego death.’ There are no physical health consequences to most, if not all, psychedelic substances. They are not physically addictive, and therefore cannot be more addictive than shopping, coffee or video-games. Mentally, psychedelics can cause trauma if a person is sent into a ‘bad trip’, but in a controlled, legalised environment, the chance of this is extremely unlikely.
To decriminalise means to remove from the crime condition the possession of a drug for personal use. That is, it is removing criminal punishment for the user of drugs — with the possibility of maintaining administrative measures such as fines. The production, distribution and trade of illegal substances continues to be a crime of trafficking.
There is an instinctive view that decriminalization should only target less harmful illicit substances such as marijuana and psychedelics. However, its most beneficial effect — that of reducing stigma and facilitating drug users’ access to the health system — is even more important for drugs whose users suffer the biggest negative health effects and often cause the greatest harm to feed their addition, such as crack, meth-amphetamine and heroin. It is ironic that the drug that probably causes the most harm in society is a legal one: alcohol.
It is time for a new attitude; decriminalise all drugs. Let’s legalise marijuana and use that money for good, the worldwide war on drugs has been lost, the dark web and dealers with burner phones mean drugs can be ordered like pizza and in 2019 it is possible to easily put cocaine back into your Coca-Cola.