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A World of Legal Drugs

Would everyone be safer if drugs were legalised?

By Rachel SmithPublished 7 years ago 3 min read
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I'm Rachel, an inspiring journalist. I am going to start writing on this platform to create a portfolio. I want to write about things that interest me and may cause some controversy. I want for everyone to have their opinion on a topic and I think it's important every story gets at least two sides to it.

So drugs — we all know what they are. They're illegal substances that are bad for you. But do we actually know what they are? I am in no way saying we should write a law where everyone is allowed to take and sell what they want but according to the BBC alcohol and tobacco are the biggest killers in the UK above any illegal drug. So why are these legal? How do we actually decide what becomes illegal and legal? Loving someone used to be illegal. Women and black men being able to have a say in how their country is run used to be illegal. I urge anyone reading this to look into the dangers and benefits of different drugs and to see how dangerous they actually are for themselves, instead of just what the media is saying.

But think about it, there's no way in hell drugs can be abolished. The war on drugs killed more people than the drugs themselves did. The war on drugs is basically the prohibition, and look how that turned out. Alcohol was made legal again because people always found ways to transport it into the country anyway. And because of that, they made a killing. And that's what drug dealers are doing. Making profit selling something that shouldn't be sold.

Now imagine a world where the government were drug dealers.

They will be making millions to put into things such as the NHS while putting dealers out of business. This would then put smugglers out of business who use innocent people for their work. They can control what goes into drugs so they are not cut with anything dangerous, they can limit people to certain amounts, we can stop treating addicts like criminals and instead someone who needs support and help to get their life back together. A hospital is going to be a healthier environment for someone to get off drugs rather than be around a culture of criminality, violence, and drugs. We could do so much more research and learn so much more about effects of drugs if we had the money and tests available. It could also reduce the spread of infection such as AIDS by providing a clean, safe place and equipment.

It's all about harm reduction. People are going to take drugs whether they're banned from a festival or club or not. However, there is The Loop who test drugs at festivals. These people save lives as someone who would normally take that drug without thinking can go and check that that drug has 3x the normal dose and has been cut with something else. There is also Vice who does a lot of work on harm reduction and a Facebook page set up for people to ask questions and find out as much information as they wish.

Obviously, there's a whole lot to be taken into consideration when talking about making drugs legal. These would be things like who can take them, what age limit do we put on them, how do we stop underage sales, over-sales, and the normalisation of drugs. With marijuana in America, they have found it has helped the government, police can concentrate on bigger issues, and they have a system of regulations in place to access it. But how do we go from this to a regulated, safe trade that is controlled and assessed? We're slowly getting there through the access of harm reduction, but there are still people in dodgy alleyways buying something that has gone through god knows how many people from the person who made it, not knowing what they are actually buying.

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