http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/07/31/proposal-to-not-put-dealers-in-prison-to-win-drug-war-115875-21560366/

Well, it doesn’t get much more stupid than this! The UK Drugs Policy Commission has finally recognized that busting drug dealers is counterproductive. However, instead of proposing that they undercut dealers’ prices with marijuana legally grown and sold to adults by licensed businesses, they’ve instead suggested that “police allow some dealers to ply their trade – and merely ask them to move away from residential neighborhoods“.

Apparently the advantages of licensing reputable businesses to produce and sell marijuana to adults is lost on the commission. Instead it thinks a better option is to allow criminals to illegally sell marijuana grown by other criminals to uncarded customers in an environment void of legal recourse.

What, dear commission, is the advantage of that?

Police should turn a blind eye to drug dealers if they want to stamp out street crime, a controversial report says.

Locking them up does no good and could even lead to violence as new villains fight it out to fill the gaps, experts warned in a report yesterday.

Instead, they said, police should allow some dealers to ply their trade – and merely ask them to move away from residential neighbourhoods.

The UK Drugs Policy Commission’s paper suggested crime-busting crackdowns can be counter-productive.

The group’s chief executive Roger Howard said police work should not be “limited to the traditional role of arresting as many dealers as possible in anticipation of reducing supply”. He added: “Drug markets will inevitably remain.”

The report said: “Drug enforcement efforts have focused on arrests and seizures with the aim of reducing supply. But markets are quick to adapt.”

The study said a better strategy would be “seeking to displace a market to another area where it will have less impact“.

Dismissing the report, the Home Office said “tough enforcement is fundamental”.

But Lib Dem spokesman Chris Huhne said: “The Government’s current enforcement policy barely scratches the surface when measured by the availability or street price of drugs.

“The enormous rise in cocaine use last year shows its negligible impact on the drugs market. We need to focus on what works.”

Last week figures revealed cocaine use rocketed by 25% in England and Wales in 2008.

And one question to the UK government, “tough enforcement is fundamental” to what? ..the security of your jobs? God knows it doesn’t keep drugs off the street and it doesn’t prevent children from buying them!

The report looked at four potential scenarios, ranging from no increase in drugs use to a 100% rise as they become more readily available.

“The conclusion is that regulating the drugs market is a dramatically more cost-effective policy than prohibition and that moving from prohibition to regulated drugs markets in England and Wales would provide a net saving to taxpayers, victims of crime, communities, the criminal justice system and drug users of somewhere within the range of, for the four scenarios, £13.9bn, £10.8bn, £7.7bn, £4.6bn.”

Titled a Comparison of the Cost-effectiveness of the Prohibition and Regulation of Drugs, the report uses government figures on the costs of crime to assess the potential benefits and disadvantages of change. The document, co-written by Steve Rolles, head of research at Transform, uses home office and No 10 strategy unit reports to form its conclusions.

It finds: “The government specifically claims the benefits of any move away from prohibition towards legal regulation would be outweighed by the costs. No such cost-benefit analysis, or even a proper impact assessment of existing enforcement policy and legislation has ever been carried out here or anywhere else in the world.”

via The Guardian “Legalisation of drugs could save UK £14bn, says study“

[I particularly like that in this study, they hypothesized the drug prohibitionist's most hysterical warnings that legalization would lead to cannabis zombies roaming the streets because use would skyrocket (STRAAIINS!! STRAAIINS!!).  Even if drug use doubled, a 100% increase, they still found they would save £4.6 billion.  Of course, I always say that everyone who wants to smoke pot is already smoking pot; I don't think marijuana usage would rise much at all.  84% of high school seniors already say they can access pot fairly easily.  I think adult usage may rise, but that teen use may fall to counteract that as marijuana moves into adults-only stores that check IDs for age 21 and over.  We've seen teen tobacco rates fall as states raise their tobacco age from 18 to 19 and as others more strictly enforce age 18 tobacco laws. -- "R"R]

I love reading the British news.  Such odd little differences between American and British English, like “legalization” vs. “legalisation”, what we call a “truck” they call a “lorry”, and what we call a “marijuana grow house” they call a “cannabis factory”.

Twenty-nine forces said they had uncovered more of the drug being grown, including Gwent which detected no factories in 2004 but 151 last year.

The largest force in the UK, London’s Metropolitan Police, reported an increase from 206 to 654, while West Midlands saw a rise from 174 to 672.

New guidance has been drawn up by the National Policing Improvement Agency to tackle the burgeoning problem of cannabis cultivation.

A national cannabis coordinator has also been appointed to share information and best practice between forces, a Home Office spokesman said.

via Number of cannabis factories found by police rises sharply – Telegraph.

See what I mean?  What they call a “national cannabis coordinator” we call a “drug czar”.

Words are important.  “Cannabis factory” conjures “industrial”, “dirty”, “high volume”, “manufacturing”, and “business”.  A “marijuana grow house” isn’t as scary.  It’s a house where marijuana grows.  “Houses” belong in neighborhoods, even if the house is being misused.  “Factories” don’t belong in neighborhoods and can only be used for business.

Reefer Madness is a universal language, it just has different dialects from country to country.