If some people are to be believed, I am a rare beast. I have never taken any drugs soft, hard, or in between that have not been prescribed to me for a medical issue and fortunately not many of those.
I can’t claim to be a saint. Growing up I’m sure I got into all sorts of bother just like everybody else. So why no drugs?
Simple. I was scared to death of the consequences of being caught with drugs. I don’t ever remember discussing categorisation of drugs into hard or soft. I do remember thinking that those who chose to smoke cannabis had crossed a big red line and it felt serious.
In my late teens, when I joined the RAF, drugs were a complete no no. If you were caught you were out of the RAF instantly. The price to pay for dabbling was altogether to high so I didn’t. This has stayed with me throughout my life.
So the consequences of drug taking always felt high and not worth what ever pleasures might be available.
But now things appear to be changing. Some liberal minded people, including politicians, are trying to analyse and grade drug taking. This seems to me to blur the issue from drugs are wrong to they might be a bit ok if you choose the right ones.
The blurring continues by those that want to legalise soft drugs by comparing them with alcohol. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Alcohol abuse is also wrong and very damaging. Alcohol use is imbedded in our society and has been for centuries to a degree that would make it almost impossible to eradicate. We must ensure drug taking does not get similarly embedded.
In the way society has clearly said drink and driving is wrong we must say drug taking is wrong and consequences follow. Initially, people did not give up having a couple of pints and then driving home for any other reason than with the introduction of the breathalyser and the ban from driving for a year. This has worked and changed the way we feel about drink driving.
We must say to our young people, drug taking of any sort, is wrong and if caught you will face consequences. We must, as a society, not turn a blind eye to the use of so called soft drug taking.
The police and the courts must press this home hard. We, must all press this home hard.
Do not let the anyone blind you with an a endemic argument on this one. If it wrong, its wrong.
Nick Clarke 
But alcohol of course isn’t a drug and isn’t wrong?
It kills more people than any other drug, is implicated in a huge proportion of domestic and child abuse cases, causes 1000’s of road deaths a year and millions of cancers.
Sorry, I’m not a drug taker either and I absolutely loath drug dealers, but the truth is smoking cannabis and occasional use of some other recreational drugs is from a medical point of view *relatively* benign.
It’s wrong legally, but morally? That’s trickier.
Propaganda won’t wash with The Kids. The know one joint probably won’t sent you permanently crazy and with a bit of luck, most people will survive taking an MDMA pill.
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Hi Harry,
I agree that young people won’t be taken in by propaganda and they also know that trying something once might be ok.
That is why the consequences need to be not related to the affects of the drugs but rather to how society deals with them.
If they are more worried about getting prosecuted and the punishment they might think twice.
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