Initial attempts to change punitive drug laws introduced worldwide beginning in the late 1800s were primarily based on recreational use. Timothy Leary was one of the most prominent advocates for the legal and recreational use of LSD. In 1967, a rally was held in Britain on the theme of “legalizing pot”. [28] However, as the death toll from the war on drugs increased, other organizations began to form to campaign on a more political and humanitarian basis. The Drug Policy Foundation was founded in America and Release, a charity that provides free legal advice to drug users and is currently campaigning for the decriminalization of drugs, which was also founded in the 1970s. In early 2022, the Province of British Columbia submitted its own request for exemption, which is closely modelled on the Vancouver model. In April of this year, Edmonton City Council also tabled a motion to exempt federal drug laws to decriminalize “simple personal possession” of illegal drugs and voted 11-2 in favour. [109] [110] While the alternative of legalization usually emerges when fear of drugs and public despair of existing policies are at their highest, it never seems to disappear from the media radar screen for long. Periodic incidents — such as the heroine-induced death of a wealthy young couple in New York City in 1995, or then-surgeon general Jocelyn Elders` remark in 1993 that legalization could be beneficial and should be investigated — guarantee this.
The importance of many of those who have advocated for legalization at various times, such as William F. Buckley, Jr., Milton Friedman, and George Shultz, also helps. But every time the issue of legalization is raised, the same arguments for and against are dusted off and trampled on, so we don`t have a clearer understanding of what it might entail and what the implications might be. The National Assembly on Friday submitted its amendments to the Ministry of Health, which would place marijuana and plant kratom in the category that allows their authorized possession and distribution under regulated conditions. The ministry reviewed the changes before forwarding them to cabinet, which sent them back to the National Assembly for a final vote. This process was completed on December 25, 2018. [48] Thailand was the first Asian country to legalize medical cannabis. [49] It should be noted that the proposed amendments will not permit the recreational use of drugs.
These measures were taken due to the growing interest in the use of marijuana and its components to treat certain diseases. Drug liberalization is a drug policy process aimed at decriminalizing or legalizing the use or sale of illicit drugs. Variants of drug liberalization include: drug legalization, drug relegalization, and drug decriminalization. [1] Proponents of drug liberalization could advocate a regulatory system for the production, marketing and distribution of some or all currently illicit drugs in a manner similar to that of alcohol, caffeine and tobacco. Many arguments seem to make legalization a convincing alternative to today`s prohibitionist policies. In addition to undermining black market incentives to produce and sell drugs, legalization could eliminate or at least significantly reduce the very problems that most concern the public: the crime, corruption and violence that accompany the functioning of illicit drug markets. It would also likely reduce the damage caused by the lack of quality controls for illicit drugs and slow the spread of infectious diseases due to needle parts and other unsanitary practices. In addition, governments could abandon costly and largely futile efforts to suppress the supply of illicit drugs and imprison offenders by spending the money saved to educate people not to use drugs and to treat those who become addicted. Proponents of drug legalization believe that the cheap and widespread supply of high-quality drugs will eliminate the illicit drug market, regulate quality and price, and reduce enforcement costs, including arrest and incarceration.
They predict that governments will spend less money on enforcement, benefit from a new source of tax revenue, and that drug-related crime will decline as drugs ranging from marijuana to heroin become widely available, more or less like alcohol and tobacco. Costa Rica has decriminalized drugs for personal use. The production or sale of drugs remains a criminal offence. In addition, placing the lucrative drug market in the hands of criminals has created a terribly violent black market, with drug trafficking networks also facilitating the trade in arms, people and illegal donors. However, what is generally presented as a fairly simple process of lifting prohibitionist controls to reap these supposed benefits would actually mean addressing an extremely complex set of regulatory issues. As with most, if not all, goods supplied by individuals and public funds, the main regulatory issues concern the type of medicines legally available, the conditions under which they are supplied and the conditions under which they are consumed (see page 21). The regulated legalization system would likely have a number of restrictions on different drugs based on their perceived risk, so that while some drugs would be sold over-the-counter in pharmacies or other licensed establishments, drugs with a higher risk of harm could only be offered for sale in licensed settings where use is monitored and emergency medical care is provided. Provided. This is not the case in the United Kingdom. Examples of drugs with different regulated distribution in most countries are: caffeine (coffee, tea), nicotine (tobacco)[16] and ethyl alcohol (beer, wine, spirits). In 2021, Vancouver and Toronto city councils voted to decriminalize simple possession of all drugs; and submitted proposals in which the Federal Minister of Health requested a special exemption, citing countless scientific, psychological, medical and socio-economic benefits. [109] On February 22, 2008, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya called on the United States to legalize drugs in order to prevent, as he said, the majority of violent killings in Honduras.
Honduras is used by cocaine traffickers as a transit point between Colombia and the United States. Honduras, with a population of 7 million people affected, an average of 8 to 10 murders per day, about 70% of which are attributable to this international drug trade. The same problem occurs in Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Mexico, according to Zelaya. [92] A nation of prison guards. The lock-in mentality of the war on drugs has pushed our criminal justice system to the limit. Today, law enforcement consumes more than half of all police resources nationwide, resources that could be better used to combat violent crimes such as rape, assault and robbery. Adverse health effects of various illicit drugs (2021). This article explains the health effects of various drugs, but it does not link harms to legalization. The question of whether Bill Clinton “inhaled” when he tried marijuana as a college student came closest to the drug problem during the last presidential campaign.
However, the current one could be very different. For the fourth year in a row, a federally backed national survey of U.S. high school students conducted by the University of Michigan found an increase in drug use. After a decade or more of declining drug use, Republicans are certain to blame President Clinton for the bad news and attack him for failing to maintain the high-profile stance of the Bush and Reagan administrations on drugs. The extent of this problem is less certain, but if the worrying trend of drug use among young people continues, the public debate on how best to address the drug problem will clearly not end with the elections. Indeed, there are already growing fears that the large wave of adolescents – the group most at risk of drugs – that will peak at the turn of the century will be accompanied by a further increase in drug use. The 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances required signatory States to “take such measures as may be necessary to establish their domestic law as criminal offences” (art.