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altogether. I would very much like to hear how. If over a trillion dollars and the 69 billion dollars that the US alone spends annually is not doing it then what is to be done? The simple fact is this; we have two choices. We can legalise all drugs across every country in the world, control them as we do tobacco and alcohol and certain prescription drugs and remove almost all of the personal and societal harms they lead to. Bear in mind that this will also seriously damage many of the worlds' largest criminal gangs. The alternative is that we criminalise alcohol and tobacco; after all they are the two most significant killers of all substances humans ingest. Indeed, alcohol is involved in almost all drug related deaths, most acts of random violence and a significant proportion of domestic violence and road traffic accidents. This is of course ignoring the deaths attributable directly to alcohol abuse. The situation as it stands is a blatant hypocrisy and young people are fully aware of this. We can choose to accept the truth that people have always and will always, take some kind of substance to feel different in some way; and work with that process for the benefit of all. Or we can choose to deny the drug addict the tools to save our society from further ills and pay for our approach through taxes used to pay for increased medical and judicial costs.

Simply put, needle exchanges and schemes like them save lives. Not just drug user but many more besides. Without them we will pay dearly for the cost of burying our head in the sand.

Learn more about this author, Martin Chandler.
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