There was an interesting Twitter debate hosted by The Economist a couple of weeks ago. The general opinion was that most countries would gradually liberalise. Mexico and Portugal are currently leading the way.

Well, this is the thing. Recreational drug use among the masses is a relatively new thing, and with each generation becomes more and more socially accepted. There will reach a critical mass at some point (now?) where the average white collar father of three has experimented with hard drugs. There are more and more people who are being won over to the legalisation end of the spectrum and when a sink estate resident (or councillor of the ward) sees places like Zurich or Rotterdam they might be won over too.

My worry is that there is little political pressure coming from this demographic. They are probably less likely to vote.

In addition, many people do things when young that they then disapprove of when older.

The main problem is any politician who liberalises the drug laws will be crucified by the press after the first death under the new regulations. Who are the press beholden to? Conservative owners and alcohol companies who advertise in their publications.

Can we play spot the casual illegal drugs user?

Absolutely, people grow more conservative with age. But it's incredibly difficult to predict or visualise an evolution before it occurs. I think the first steps will be to quell the alarmism of drugs - instances like the "Miaow" instant criminalisation will recede before other drugs are liberalised. It'll be a rocky road but I believe all drugs will eventually be legalised. The incredible pull factor in all this is the billions of revenue to be gained by standardising and taxing drugs.

If it can be demonstrated to work on marijuana first with proper legalisation, baby steps from there will be workable.

Yes! I'll start...

Cannabis smoker:

Here's an advantage to legalising cannabis: In my opinion the main danger of cannabis is that it's mixed with tobacco and smoked. This is the main form of ingestion in Europe. This makes cannabis de facto addictive and de facto carcinogenic. It could be sold exclusively in tea bags or in food as muffins etc if it were legalised. This would eliminate most of the downsides of cannabis.

I chose economisto for that one. Just a hunch.

It wouldn't eliminate the sheer tedium of trying to conduct an intelligent conversation with someone who's caned out of his box, though, would it?

And the trips to the all-night garage to buy Lion Bars and Pringles...

hunch incorrect. I believe in the non-stabbing of Buddhists too. I am not a Buddhist.

The other modern reality is that lists of prohibited substances can't keep up the the development, marketing and distribution of new substances. At some point authorities will have to move to a functional definition.

No it wouldn't. I'm sure he'll join you for that pint.

Sure sure.....

This is sort of relevant to Economisto's points made earlier:

Youth voting in large numbers for certain propositions...

Most. In The Netherlands the legalisation is getting undone bit by bit (by the way it was never legal... as it was illegal for coffee shops to buy cannabis!!). 2 reasons: drugs tourism and the fact that they discovered that pot is not so safe after all. Especially the strong pot sold in Holland. It causes brain damage (just like Alcohol for that matter). Just one problem: they cannot just close the coffee shops. (which is by the way one of the reasons for our move to Switzerland, I don't need a coffee shop near to my children's school...)

Still I think that the medical world should be much more open to marihuana use for f.i. cancer patients...

They tried it in the USA it failed....NEXT !!!

Tried what exactly?

Making alcohol illegal.

Thank you Dougal I thought people were discussing prohibition at least u were reading the subject

The post before was about legalisation of marijuana, so your post was ambiguous.

I thought I might have not heard about a pilot project or moment in history.