TIME TO THINK THE UNTHINKABLE IN THE DRUGS WAR

Here we go again. Should drugs be legalised? After a century of
declaring war on narcotics, surely the time has come to just say yes.

Bob Ainsworth MP may not be the most persuasive or eloquent candidate
to front a decriminalisation campaign (I wouldn't want to buy any
drugs from him) but it is good he has revived the debate.

I played my own small part in the global fight against drugs. In the
summer of 1984 I spent three months in the Amazon jungle working for
the Save the Children Fund. Part of my duty was to introduce Indians
to soya beans and wean them off the coca leaf (which is turned into
coca paste for the manufacture of cocaine). The logic was simple: coca
is bad, soya is good. My intentions could not have been more honourable.

But only 15 years later did I come to realise what appalling
environmental damage I'd wreaked. The soya beans were the worst thing
I could have inflicted on the Indians -- far worse than an STD. Today's
mass deforestation of the Amazon is largely caused by Western demands
for cheap palm oil, beef and soya. China's demand for soya to feed its
chickens and pigs has skyrocketed; Brazil alone supplies 25 per cent
of the global soya market.

My contribution to the soya revolution made me realise how wrongheaded
we are in the West. I had not only deprived the Indians of a better
income but literally sowed the seeds of the Amazon's
destruction.

Our war against drugs is similarly perverse. Prohibition doesn't work.
Drugs don't observe law officers but the laws of the marketplace:
supply meets demand. There will always be a demand, whether it is
illegal or not. The only people who benefit from criminalisation of
drugs are the drug lords. They harvest all the profit; meanwhile,
crime flourishes. Our courts and prisons are jampacked with young
offenders, at vast cost to society and the taxpayer.

Far better to regulate drugs, license them and clean up the
adulterated chemicals before they hit the streets. The Exchequer
should then plough the money back into drugs education and treating
addicts. Sell drugs through official outlets but make sure everyone
knows the price they will pay in terms of their health and sanity.

The biggest hypocrisy of modern society is that we still peddle
nicotine at corner shops. Tobacco is addictive, causes cancer and
fills hospitals with emphysema victims. But governments haven't
outlawed nicotine because they can tax and regulate it. Surely they
could do the same with other narcotics?

It is time we thought the unthinkable on drugs. We legalised
prostitution and homosexuality in the face of widespread opposition
and moral panic. Now we wonder what took us so long. Soon we will be
saying the same about drugs. Let's not wait another century.