Drugs and Crack Heads!

There is an arguement which fights for the right to take what ever drugs you like, be it alcohol, tobacco, cannabis to class A drugs, as long as you do not affect other people and their rights by your own actions. The approach tends to be 'if they're not hurting anyone else, why bother them?'...

Although I do not support the 'police state' and suffocating control government legislation already inflict on society, nor do I accept the above arguement. The idealistic intentions of government regulations and social policy is to protect the wellbeing and welfare of society - and therefore the affects of drugs, whether it be illegal, recreational drugs, or the misuse of prescription medication. The descent into drug abuse is not a simple process. There is no well informed and logical decisions made - there are many social, physical, emotional and psychological factors that play a large role in initiating drug abuse and it is the responsibility of government and healthcare professionals to protect users from this downward spiral. For example Drug Dependency and Society claim that in a survey they conducted, high percentage of young people using class A drugs were from vulnerable backgrounds (e.g. children having been in care, those who are homeless). Drug abuse disrupts a persons relationships with family and friends, daily functioning, e.g. work, school, home life, and contributes to poor mental and physical health. It is much more than just getting high!

But it is not only drug users who need to be protected, it is the other victims who are affected as a result of others drug abuse. There are strong associations between drug abuse, crime, anti-social and threatening behaviour,and the breakdown of communities due to public fear and intimidation effects of high crime and violence. The BBC News Article discusses some of the main points from research completed by the University of York stating that between £10.9 billion and £18.8 billion per year is the cost to society of drug related issues, with the majority of this devoted to dealing with drug related crime. Many people are affected, such as victims of drink/drug driving, robberies, burglaries and run down areas of society. It is not as simple to say 'if people take drugs and not affect anyone else, its ok..' inevitably there will always be victims, be it through the criminality of drug users, or by the users themsleves who have not had psychological, social, mental and emotional struggles identified and attended to.

However, I feel the government are not acting upon alcohol and tobacco consumption, and recently it has been highlighted not only how damaging they are to health and society, but also how harmful they are in comparision to other drugs. For example, alcohol and tobacco were judged to be more harmful than Class A drugs Ecstacy and LSD as indicated in this report by The Scientific Activist .As alcohol and tobacco is legal (just think of the high taxes the government are receiving for these!) it almost justifies and authenticates the consumption of these substances. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the odd tipple, but the odd drink in a social situation is a far cry from alcohol abuse...I feel there is a large contradiction with allowing these substances to be sold at low prices and offers, and are easily accessible e.g. from shops, pubs, restaurants, airports and trains etc, and then benefit from the added taxes, and then criticise the public, law enforcement and healthcare professionals when it costs large sums of money to compensate for the after effects. I believe the government are pretty much letting down the vulnerable members of society who suffer from substance abuse, and think mainly about how they can benefit from the economic advantages.