The major issue i have w/ illegal drugs now is the corruption, death and abuse in the chain of supply.
i don't believe in legalisation when linked to the 'less harmful than tobacco/alcohol' argument. The logical response to that is to make tobacco/alcohol unlawful.
I am an advocate of drug programmes which prescribe the drug of need to the user w/ tandem regular blood work and urine tests to ensure that the Px amount is being consumed and not released onto the streets. Prescription of the drug requires mandatory and regular contact with subs use agencies. The drugs could be taxed and the income ploughed into administration of the services. Plus of course the millions of pounds saved on policing because crime rates would plummet. Some of that could be diverted into funding this.
Interestingly in the 80's President Reagan placed pressure on Thatcher to close one such intiative in the Wirral. His wife was in full flow w/ her 'Just Say No' campaign' and the success of the British drug prescription initiative (dramatically plunging crime rates locally and reduced morbidity/mortality) risked the 'credibility' of the Reagan campaign. He was successful. Thatcher shut it down and within months, crime rates had returned to pre initiative levels.
I spent years working with Drugs Advisory Services as a young RMN and I helped research and set up one of the first needle exchanges. We sometimes had irate parents accusing us of encouraging their child to inject. My explanation for provision of needles etc? That their child would continue to source equipment on the street; that they would use, reuse and share; that they would risk abscesses and worse. If and when their child decided to stop using, would they as parents prefer to have an intact child returned to them with two arms, two legs? Because that is what clean equipment helps prevent. The BBV prevention goes without saying of course.
We are seeing long term injecting users with chronic and hopeless pulmonary disease now because crushing pills (especially physeptone) causes granuloma in the lungs as the un-dissolvable particle ingredients of these pills accumulate in the alveoil, destroying them. The only cure is a transplant. Very sad and I will not participate in the deserving/undeserving arguments re transplanting these people. They are all children of somebody.