THE DECRIMINALISATION DEBATE

The year is 2015. You're young and looking for fun on a Friday night.

You feel like going dancing, and you think things will go better if you get
high. So you pop along to the chemist.

>From the shelves by the pharmacy section, you take down some boxes and look
at the labels.

There are lists of ingredients - MDMA, MDEA, MDA, MEA, MBDB and PMA, by
percentage and purity levels - but actually you're more attracted by the
picture of some very healthy looking bronzed bodies dancing up close on the
back of Canada Duck Ecstasy.

Moral judgement

"Unlimited Beats, No Head Shock," says the slogan on the front.

You buy two, one for tonight, one for tomorrow. The middle-aged woman at the
till doesn't even notice you as you hand over your money - she's too
interested in the shifty looking guy hanging round the surgical appliance
section.

If decriminalisation campaigners get their way this will happen, first in
Europe, later in the USA, when governments admit what some must already
suspect - that the War on Drugs is a failure.

But for many other people, taking the criminal law out of drug use would be
the last sign that society had finally lost all moral judgement.

Think hard, you may be asked to vote on these ideas one day.

Danny Kushlick, director of the Transform campaign group based in Bristol,
says there are four ways to distribute drugs, and most countries choose the
worst - letting criminals do it.

The other possible methods depend on the kind of drug. So-called hard
drugs - addictive substances like heroin, cocaine, and Crack - should be
available on prescription only from doctors, he says, because then addiction
levels could be monitored and addicts offered counselling.

Chemical warfare

Soft drugs like cannabis should be sold in licensed cafes or bars, like
alcohol.

And "recreational chemicals" that appeal to young people, including Ecstasy
and amphetamines, should be distributed through pharmacies under trained
supervision, the way cold remedies are in some countries today.

Then purity levels would be guaranteed, because pharmaceutical companies
would produce them, not criminals working in basement laboratories using
drain cleaner to adulterate the drug and increase their profits.

"Under the prohibition system, young people are left in an incredibly
vulnerable situation, a totally unregulated, uncontrolled, unlicensed trade
in very powerful drugs. It's a dangerous and dirty market," he says.

But to Grainne Kenny, president of Europe Against Drugs (EURAD) in Dublin,
this is the same as declaring chemical warfare on the young.

"These people are talking about giving out poisons. Decriminalisation would
mean no control on the supply, promotion and export of stupefying
substances. Families would be left on their own, trying to deal with
increasingly violent and deluded addicts."

Harm reduction

For decriminalisers, Holland's cannabis cafe scene and SwitzerlandBFs
needle exchange booths are examples of how relaxed policing can bring about
what's called "harm reduction".

Cannabis use has been steadily falling in Holland and is reported to be
lower per capita than in the UK, where possession is still formally a
serious offence.

The spread of viruses like HIV and Hepatitis C through needle sharing is
reduced by free syringes.

Ethan Nadelman of the Lindesmith Drug Policy Center in New York blames the
US Government for allowing 200,000 Americans to be infected with AIDS by
forcing them to hide their addiction and share dirty needles.

"The bottom line ultimately is not about drugs and drug abuse, the bottom
line is about reducing the death and disease and crime associated with our
failed prohibitionist policies," he says.

Experiments

But he admits it does depend on your view of human nature - do you think in
a free-drug society people would take a rational decision not to become
victims, or would they be dragged down into dependency?

The most likely outcome of this debate, in the short term, is that countries
that have not started to debate decriminalisation seriously, including the
UK, will watch carefully those that have.

The latest experiment is taking place in Germany, where in some regions
registered addicts can receive heroin at injection centres without having to
agree to any attempt at withdrawal.

If that really does bring down the level of street robbery, slow the spread
of disease and reduce policing costs, it's a step that other governments
will find hard to resist.