Risky activities and breaking the law

Clearly drug laws have provided a great opportunity for politicians to exaggerate the risks, generating fear in the electorate which they can then exploit by being “tough on drugs”. Unfortunately this “tough” approach does nothing but exacerbate the harms of drugs and pits otherwise law abiding people against the police. In addition it does nothing to limit the access of drugs to children. Dealers of illegal drugs do not generally ask for proof of age when selling their wares. At least with alcohol and tobacco the sellers will generally be careful to only sell to adults.

It is time that as a nation we stopped pandering to the scaremongering politicians and media, and developed some consistency in our approach to risk taking behaviour. If I can risk my health playing rugby or riding a motorcycle or drinking alcohol, I should also be able to risk my health taking ecstasy or marijuana.

All people who believe that a person should have the liberty to decide what they do with their own body should find the current laws against recreational drugs abhorrent. It is time we took a rational approach to drug use. Take the supply of drugs out of the hands of criminals and regulate it as we do the other legal recreational drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

Educate the population on drug harms, but then let adults make their own mistakes as we do in every other area of life.