TAKE DRUGS OFF THE STREETS.

Surely after all these years of "fighting" drug addiction and problems, whether through law enforcement or treatment, somebody i Government has the common sense to realise that these tactics alone are not working.

So long as there are people willing (in fact eager) to make money out of the illegal drugs trade, the supply will remain out of control, with no accurate point-of-sale advice, no quality control, and no tax on profits.

The line of people willing to replace those small percentage of dealers and especially the people at the top - as soon as one is locked up supply and demand and profit motivation fills the gap.

Meanwhile those that fall prey to those dealers suffer through addiction, impurities and the cross-drug gateways (actually dealers and other users).  Often more than one drug may be just as easily available from the same supplier!

And all this costs the tax-payer BILLIONS of pounds each year, not to mention the amount of crime committed to raise funds to by dirty drugs on the street.

The SOLUTION - just like alcohol - take the supply out of the hands of criminals - put it into the hands of qualified doctors and pharmacists, for the class A drugs, and chemists and adult shops for others.  Introduce different systems of supply for different substances to adults.

TAKE DRUGS OFF THE STREETS.

STOP PUNISHING THE USERS - those that the law ought to protect as it does those that choose to drink alcohol.

That is the only way this battle against drug-caused harms will ever be one.

At it's time that the Governments of the UK and other countries woke up to this simple fact:  the prohibition causes more problems than the drugs themselves.

As for cannabis - I echo the words of the late Eddie Ellison, retired head of Scotland Yard's Drug Squad: "Cannabis ought never have been illegal in the first place."

The above was my comment left on the Home Office Drug Strategy Blog

I wonder if it will be published?