Legalisation of drugs Recipe for damage akin to alcoholism

ANY debate about the legalisation of street drugs will take place against the back story of the havoc, despair and absolute lifelong misery inflicted on millions of Irish people by that most seductive and available of all drugs: alcohol.

In a society where nearly every family has endured, or is enduring, the heartbreak of seeing a father, mother, brother, sister or a dear friend turned into something less than human, something immeasurably less than the person they once loved — or struggle to still love — because of alcohol, it may be asking too much to allow cocaine to be sold by Dunnes Stores.

Alcohol has scarred every workplace, every community and ruined far, far too many relationships.

Ironically, it may be because of the carnage wreaked by alcohol that those who advocate the legalisation of cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine or whatever you’re having yourself, will face a vociferous majority opposed to their proposals.

We all know too many fine individuals sundered emotionally, physically or mentally by our two national diseases, alcoholism and depression.

In too many instances the impact of these diseases is as profound for those close to the victim as it is for the victims themselves. The two diseases are so often such toxic bedfellows as to nearly be considered the two sides of the same coin, and to suggest that we should remove controls on substances, for “recreational” use, that might deepen this trough of despair is just plain daft.

It is equally daft to suggest that we can continue as we are. The prospect of ever-more frequent deaths because of drug misuse, especially related to cocaine or ecstasy among people in their 20s, is too awful to contemplate.

We must contemplate though, that the efforts by law enforcement agencies across the world and across the decades have failed to stop the trade in illegal drugs and, in reality, are unlikely to do so.

The sums of money are vast, well beyond the imaginings of any misfortunate enslaved by addiction. And in reality money is the nub of the question — are any of our western societies strong enough and determined enough to bring the drugs trade and the tremendous revenues it generates to an end, or at the very least greatly reduce it?

Can any western society offer a vision of personal dignity, happiness and the prospect of achievement that will make the fleeting attractions of illicit drug use seem a bad bet, a party-night chance not worth taking?

Though the source of the message no longer enjoys the authority it once did, last week’s plea from the heart by Archbishop Seán Brady was not far off the mark.

A society that measures a person’s worth by material achievement, tolerates unfettered corporate greed and has at its centre a laissez-faire rat race, is unlikely to convince a relatively young and inexperienced individual that saying “no” is a valid and more sustainable option.

The argument for the legalisation of some street drugs ignores some obvious and unacceptable situations. Would legalising the sale of heroin mean that all of the drug dealers now in business would quit the trade? Very unlikely.

Legalisation would mean quality control. “We’d know what we would be taking...” The reality is that we don’t even know what we’re eating when we buy a burger or a tropical fruit smoothie.

We have already failed to convince the hundreds of thousands of Irish people swapping their lives for the company of alcohol to curtail their indulgences. Imagine how much harder that process would be if we legalised even more powerfully addictive drugs?

A prospect far too frightening to contemplate.