Every time someone says 'legalise cannabis', 'illegal drugs' etc they create an equal and opposite reaction to their expressed wish. The key is in the language, we are fooled - really truly and it is NOW time to change language. When you think about it you will slowly realise that cannabis or any controlled drug is an object - objects are NEVER legal or illegal. What is legal or illegal are human actions concerning that property - a handgun in a licensed club is legally held, in a criminal's hands it is illegally held - it's not that guns are illegal.
Drugs are controlled under law, so that human actions concerning them are criminalised such as the actions / states of being such as production, cultivation, importation, supply and possession - these are property offences. It is not the property which is illegal, it is what you do with it.
Controlled implies a breadth of measures, proportionate to achieve a purpose - the purpose of the Misuse of Drugs Act is to ameliorate the social harm caused by drugs. If this is to be done by sensible regulation, then that is diametrically opposed to the notion of illegality. The MDA gives the Government the tools for such regulation, but it does not do so because it believes that controlled drugs are illegal drugs. They are not illegal in law, it isn't illegal in proper English and it isn't illegal conceptually.
There are 3 reasons in that argument, they are essential to grasp. Law controls people, not drugs, drugs should be regulated, not prohibited and 'illegal' or 'legalise' when applied to drugs enforces the prohibition default we are supposed to accept as the current law (current law actually is supposed to be proportionate regualtion). The law doesn't even say 'illegal' drugs - it says controlled, so why make it worse than it is. -Darryl Bickler
www.drugequality.org
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