Sir, Recent suggestions by persons in highly visible public positions have advocated making the sale of heroin and other drugs a non criminal act. Their threefold logic is that by so doing drug barons would be put out of business that heroin would be readily available that the State might even control and tax drugs as it does alcohol and tobacco. I utterly disagree.
The logical extension of this argument is to abolish our criminal laws entirely and consequently there would be no longer any criminal acts.
Conventional law is in place essentially for the guidance and ultimately for the protection of all citizens of the Republic. For example, we all agree to drive on the left and so are better protected in our travels than if we make a beeline for our destination, ignoring the safety of ourselves and others in a free for all.
The basic argument for decriminalisation of drugs is on a very shallow premise that drugs are really only another form of a relaxing drink or a recreational fag. Nothing could be further from the truth. Drinking or eating in excess will eventually damage your body and impair your health. Smoking, even in so called moderation, will in time harm your lungs if nothing else.
However, while drinking and smoking cause alcohol or nicotine addiction in a number of cases, the vast majority of persons who take a drink do not have to do so on a daily basis, and the vast majority of even heavy smokers are not impaired in the normality of living their everyday lives.
Compare this with the heroin and drug user who must have a regular fix. The fix is not recreational like a drink which for most people can be taken or left, nor relaxing like a fag which can be smoked while driving or doing the ironing. The fix is essential to escape the reality of the day. The drug deprives the user of the full use of intelligence and will. This is the core argument for never accepting drugs.
While on drugs, the user may have a heightened awareness of sound, colour or a heightened sense of well being. Let us ignore for the moment, the short or long term physical damage the drug may do to the body, but what we cannot ignore is the damage the drug does to the mind. It is interesting to note that while the new reality is heightened, it is totally personal and internal, excluding all others from its subjective effects.
Those who have attempted to write or to compose music while under the influence of drugs have found back in a normal state of body and mind that their writings ramble and the music is incoherent. What musicians have, however, found is that in the performance of their music under drugs natural inhibitions are suppressed to allow a limited form of externalising of the subjective effects of the drug.
Under drugs, full intelligence cannot operate. Logical decisions cannot be consistently derived as in normal life. The mind cannot, inform the body how to properly control its motor functions while the chemical imbalance of the drug remains in the system. This is the first essential difference from the (moderate) use of alcohol or tobacco.
Under drugs, full willpower cannot operate. The desire to carry on a normal life is suspended while under the use of the drug. The citizen under the influence of a drug is usually useless to self, to family or to society, and more often than not, is a positive danger to self and others. This is the second essential difference from the (moderate) use of alcohol or tobacco.
We should not legalise drugs simply to deprive the bosses of crime of drug related income. They will only find some other source of funds as they consistently do and our existing laws if applied can confiscate such funds. We should not legalise drugs to boost VAT and excise revenues from a legalised controlling of their sale. The physical and mental well being of the broad spectrum of our citizens is far more important than a new source of tax revenues. Yours, etc., PhB MA, Crodaun, Celbridge, Co Kildare.