When the media love to scare us all witless about the horrors of drugs, and how a few grams of skunk or cocaine will turn us into psychotic beasts, it takes a hardy soul to defy the shrieking headlines and say all drugs should be legalised.But why not? It's been pointed out often that most drug-related tragedies actually stem from illegality, and many of the deaths, overdoses, collapses and addictions would not occur if drugs were openly available.
It's illegality that means drugs are taken furtively in unhygienic conditions that cause infections. It means dosage and quality are uncertain and drugs can be contaminated with serious poisons.
It means that in an emergency people are loathe to seek help because they're doing something forbidden. And it means accurate information about drugs and their physical effects is hard to obtain.
What's more, if it all went legal, the unscrupulous drug-dealers who sell polluted products at inflated prices would have to shut up shop or clean up their act, and they'd have to pay the government some tax instead of just lining their pockets.
But at the end of the day, drug use isn't a legal issue, it's a health issue. You can't stop people taking them, but what you can do is ensure they take them in conditions that safeguard their health and don't lead to illness, unhappiness and isolation. Conditions in which they aren't treated as pariahs and outcasts but given all the advice, support and information they need to indulge their tastes safely and not recklessly.
Most of the tough talk comes from ill-informed hotheads who've never tried the drugs in question and are swayed by rawcous hard-liners - even when they're happily consuming dangerous drugs like alcohol and tobacco themselves.
But draconian laws aren't stopping the explosion in drug use. We need a better remedy for pain and distress than law courts and jail cells.
(For the record, the only banned drugs I've taken are cannabis and LSD. I've never tried any others, mostly because I've never been offered them - what a sheltered life I lead)
PS: Very interesting programme on Channel 4 on August 3 by Dr Colin Froggatt arguing that heroin should be decriminalised and freely prescribed. He says this has been a big success in Switzerland. Thanks for the link, Bellulah.
