MAKE ABUSERS PAY

We celebrate tobacco and alcohol use and wage war against drugs. I
hadn't grasped the profound case for decriminalizing drugs until Dan
Gardner's extraordinary analysis.

There is an even bigger issue of health and social costs of substance
abuse into which the drug issue fits. To reduce the enormous medical
costs of drug and alcohol and tobacco and food abuse, we must make
abusers bear the costs. They can make their own decision about drugs,
alcohol and tobacco and food (obesity); just do not expect me to share
equally in the medical costs.

Where abuse is, in the opinion of qualified medical staff, the cause of
health problems, the individual should bear 50 per cent of the costs of
publicly funded medical treatment.

Many of us are more responsible for ourselves and better respect the
choices and freedoms society gives us, which should include
decriminalized drugs. The burden of less responsible behaviour should
fall on those less responsible.

Decriminalizing drugs would free up enormous financial resources to
assist individuals who are not responsible for their medical and social
misfortunes; we are obliged to care for them. Given the broad public
savings from decriminalization, we would probably be giving more care
to responsible people and get a meaningful tax reduction too.