Bobs Ainsworth’s ‘eroic stand on ‘eroin
Monday 20th December 2010, 8:59AM GMT.
While nothing can excuse that moustache, Bob Ainsworth, the former defence secretary who took the H out of ‘elicopters, has at last spoken some common sense, writes Peter Rhodes.
He says all drugs should be legalised. That is not a madcap fringe opinion. It is shared by many police officers and a few chief constables. The “war on drugs” has been a 30-year failure.
In every town, city and village in Britain, you can buy any substance you want, thanks to an illegal industry worth billions which accounts for half of all crime.
If you bought your heroin from Boots the Chemist instead of Bert the junkie, the state would control the quality of the stuff and I doubt if a single extra person would get addicted.
Indeed, the thought of queuing for your daily fix among queues of pensioners clutching haemorrhoid cream would probably take just a little glamour off the whole drugs thing.
Business Awards
Book a Business Awards table
Join our celebrations of the region's best in business on Thursday March 22 - book your table now
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Express & Star and Shropshire Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases
OUR NEW APP
Get the new E&S app
Download the Express & Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
expressandstar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
I agree, we need to take radical action and if that means legalising, then so be it.
Report abuse
I have heard this argument lots and lots of times and, to a certain extent I agree with it. However, Cigarettes are legal and you can still buy ‘knocked off’ cigarettes, both fake and real. Same with most items that can be transported in a car boot, DVD’s, perfume, etc. All that would happen would be that the dealers would have to be more competitive to compete with the likes of boots etc, and so the ‘quality’ would be reduced. The other problem is legitimisation would bring a whole new market with those that would not do something illegal and do not know where to get drugs from. As an aside I remember being part of surveys at school where you had to answer whether you had taken drugs, and to a lad all said yes and I know 99% had not.
Report abuse