Russia following in America's failed "war on drugs" footsteps, it seems

[Zenaan Harkness]

Being a great fan of personal liberty to the extent the individual
does not harm another, I can only wholeheartedly support the premises
and observations laid out in the following article.

The "war" on drugs not only does not reduce crime, number of
prisoners, nor as far as we can see since Vietnam nor does it reduce
drug use, but as far as I can tell, the war on drugs only fuels crime,
creating the black markets, creating criminals, causing great angst
and physical health problems for those who are addicted, and
drastically increasing the prison population of "criminals" for
victimless "crimes".

Humans will be human. There will always be those humans who wish to
experiment, or to make life long use their choice or addicted
non-choice as the case may be, whether their drug(s) of choice be
alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, heroine, ice, ecstasy or
anything else. Humans will be human and so logically there is NO
FIRETRUCKING POINT in making crimes out of "normal" human behaviour
and choices, where those choices and behaviours harm no one other than
(at most) the individual themselves.

Prohibition never worked.

Alcohol got legalized again, marijuana is on a slowish road to
re-legalization and many of us are aware of DuPont's cotton empire and
political connections causing the prohibition of marijuana.

Indeed, prohibition has only -ever- made the reality on the ground,
for the users/ addicted to that which is prohibited, much worse,
except of course for those police, government, military and other
outlaw gangs who profit from the prohibition - read Victoria Police
Corruption (Hoser) for various Australian examples.

We can only hope that the tending to be somewhat more intellectual
"public conversation" that occurs in Russia will turn to such rational
observations, be supported with bold honest public discussion, and
that they can move their collective political selves in the only
rational "harm minimization" direction - legalizing all drugs, at the
very least on prescription for those who are addicted.

All together now let us pray, pray for the poppies.
...


http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/mirroring-america-why-russias-war-drugs-will-fail/ri13920
Mirroring America: Why Russia's War on Drugs Will Fail
Russia seems determined to pursue a drug policy which over the last 40
years has failed resoundingly in the United States and world wide