Sooner or later...

Once again we have an official report saying that dragging drug-users before the courts and fining or imprisoning them is a waste of money and has little or no effect on levels of addiction, and that drug-taking should be treated as a health issue - not as a crime.  And once again the government - as successive governments have done in the past - is trying to push the issue into the long grass, in the hope that it will eventually go away.  I've had my say - I believe you could pretty well eliminate drug-related crime "at a stroke" by making drugs freely available - yes, the number of people using drugs might increase as a result, but the advantages to society would massively outweigh any problems this might cause.  I'm afraid this is one of those areas where fear of the Daily-Mail-readers-backlash has been allowed to trump common sense.