107 / Pssst, what's the best show on TV? Hungry Beast, and it isn't on SBS
This week they had a stunning story on the war on drugs, namely how useless it is.
The figures are mind boggling … a trillion dollars spent, yet, the effect on illegal drug use is zero. Thousands of people die in the distribution of drugs, many more die from using contaminated drugs. But drug use is popular … about half the population does it. Prohibition is, well … ineffective, expensive and stupid.
Is there an alternative? Yep, stop prohibition. Portugal decriminalised drugs in 2001 … wow, that must mean drug use went through the roof, surely. Actually not, in the contrary … it went down. So did crime, government expenditure on crime and health problems (report sample: 'drug-related
pathologies—such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage—have
decreased dramatically'). Watch the show and get angry, Hungry Beast on ABC.