Yup, that is the difficulty. And that is why I am not currently lobbying for a change in legislation. All I know is that the current laws don't work. Or at least - they don't really help much. What they do accomplish is to stimulate the continuous development of new, more potent and more dangerous designer drugs while failing to curb the use of "traditional" drugs, and that is a huge problem.IADad said:would such a vague law also allow the banning of alcohol, of spray propellants, adhesives? the whole banning of substances is a tricky thing. it seems that once we ban one thing, another comes into use that is technically legal.
I am involved with an organisation, much like an NGO, but its not registered as such (we're working on that, and on our website, but its hard for a group of volunteers to find the time ) who are currently working with some lawyers who are kind enough to volunteer their time and a few politicians to try to come up with something better. Until then - the current laws will have to do, and we will have to spend the bulk of our time and effort on education and awareness.
This is also where this discussion ties in with a spanking ban. IMO, if you ban spanking without parents' buy-in and without first giving parents a feasible alternative, parents will turn to other, technically legal, but possibly much more destructive techniques. The one or two threads we've had on here about parents using military techniques on toddlers, come to mind... <shudder>
This is one of the issues we are currently debating - history has shown that legal substances are easier to control - think alcohol, prescription drugs (before the advent of on-line pharmacies, at least), etc. The difference is that those substances have one property that neither heroin, nor cocaine, nor a number of other drugs have - it is possible to use them in a healthy, non-destructive way. And as sound and logical as the principle of "let the individual take responsibility for his own health but protect those around him" may sound, it does not take into account the the tendency of drug use to escalate out of the user's control...IADad said:But I get what you're getting at. Perhaps a better appraoch would be not banning substances but banning the practice of using them to intoxication while in public or while responsible for the care of another individual. That would end up meaning that it would be legal to use LSD or Opium or cocaine, as long as you don't put anyone else in danger, but it would make the misuse of glue or paint illegal. Are we ready to "laglize all those substances while controlling their use?
Anyway, I should get off my soap-box now. This isn't the appropriate forum for this discussion And I think I've made my point about the importance of getting not only the intent, but also the contents of the law right, or you run the risk of doing more harm than good.
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