Nothing will ever change
 

Nothing will ever change.
75 percent of the people in prison today are in there for drug or alcohol related crimes. In the US it is concidered a moral ,week willed person. They refuse to see it as what it is (a disease). In the UK they finally stood up and said we will no longer treat our people as criminals. You want heroin we will give it to you for free. You want treatment(the best there is) we will give it to you free of charge. Do you put people in prison that have cancer, I think not. The USA needs to do the same thing. Here it is all about the money. The have and the have nots. It is time for the people to stand up and force the US to do the same thing. All treatment should be free. For the republic for which we stand. This goverment is designed to keep the rich people rich and the poor people poor. All the people standing on the street corner selling drugs are blamed for this problem. They don't own any boats or air planes. They are not flying and floating this stuff in here. Most big time drug deals are are fininced by the rich people here. Goverment trading arms for drugs? They do not want to stop it. Elect me president and I would stop it with in 6 months with just a few phone calls. As president I would call all major drug producing countries and tell them you have 6mo. to clean up your country or we will take you off the face of the earth and be prepared to do so. I know this sounds harsh but nothing will ever change. Logo :discuss

A relative of mine has a "big" position in our health care industry. She says it's the major pharmaceutical companies that run this company behind the scenes and Obama has tried hard to "work" with them. People don't realize how much power they have and how many other presidents have given it to them. Scary!!

The US kills off more people with cigarettes and alcohol than all drugs combined and it is legal. Is there something wrong with this picture? Cigarettes and alcohol should be made against the law. They should be made schedule II drugs. Nothing will ever change. Logo

I'm not sure about legalization. But, I agree, those that are making the money in smuggling and dealing illegal drugs are not paying for the damage they cause. They're not even taxed so the law-abiding citizens and the legal businesses bear the brunt of paying for public health care while most rehabilitation programs are paid with private funds. And people are suffering. We are suffering. I don't know the answer.

I'm not sure what the answer is, either, but I am convinced that legalization is NOT it. Cigarettes and alcohol DO wreak havoc on our society and the people in it, both those addicted to them and those who love them, and IMHO, that fact is a strong argument AGAINST the legalization of additional addictive substances.

Legalization MAY reduce costs of the drug war, but it would also increase social acceptability, leading to more people trying the substance, liking the substance, and becoming addicted to the substance. Costs saved on the drug war would lost somewhere else - the waste of human life and potential, and the emotional wreckage of addiction radiating out from each addict onto all those who care about him. Having watched the devastation of addiction in my own life and how far its tentacles reach from just a single addict, and having read numerous posts by the devastated folks on SR, I could never be in favor of legalization of any additional drugs. As a society, it would be irresponsible to implicitly condone drug use by legalizing it, IMO.

Sorry this isn't true. Yes treatment is available on the NHS but it's very hard to get a place in most cities. Our healthcare is paid for by our taxes. Also noone is given heroin for free, I don't understand where this misinformation has come from, the UK has a huge heroin problem. There was a heroin prescription trial in some areas in 2009 but it was a massive failure.