Arguments against Legalisation
Arguments can be presented on many levels, i.e. the individual level, the group/family level, the community level, the national level and the international level. All of these levels are important and together they encompass the entire spectrum of negative effects which legalisation would have in its wakes.
Individual
For the individual, drugs cause a large number of injuries of medical, social, mental, economic and psychological types. The injuries vary, depending on the type of drug but also on such factors as the intensity of abuse, size of dose, sex, age, the person's own disposition, whether different drugs are combined, etc.
From experience we know that social rejection as a consequences of drug abuse work in many cases more rapidly than alcohol abuse. A mixed abuse of alcohol, narcotics and prescribed pharmaceuticals accelerates the development of injuries.
It is sometimes said that alcohol causes more damage that drugs do. It is correct that alcohol is responsible for a large number of deaths and enormous social rejection which is greater than that caused by drugs. But if the now restricted drugs were legalised the way alcohol is, they would quickly overtake alcohol in harm production. Injuries would arise which would be many times greater that those existing today, not least in combination WITH alcohol. The logical consequence, AND THE MOST RADICAL, would be to proceed in the opposite direction and take serious action to reduce the consumption of legal drugs, not least alcohol!
It can be ascertained that drug abuse at the individuals level tends to reinforce already existing personality distortions and to hamper the individual's possibility of maturing and growing through complex and demanding relations with the world around him. In addition, drugs have the ability to disturb and spoil an entirely normal course of development in a teenager, for example. In this way the drug creates its own psycho-social injury pattern. Parallel with this destructive career, a drug dependence is established which has its own dynamic force and is relatively isolated from the causes which once led to experimentation with drugs. In other words, drugs limit the individual's desire to make constructive choices and reduce the ability to achieve normal satisfaction of needs. This leads to a social handicap entailing constant collisions on all levels with the rest of the world. These collisions reinforce the addict's sense of deviation, which in turn reinforces relationship to drugs and the sub-culture where they are to be found.
Primary group/family
The stresses and suffering of the people who live in close emotional contact to an addict are an often neglected chapter. The counsellor/social worker often lacks understanding of the processes which drug abuse initiates in the entire family. The anxiety and negative feelings and the irrational behaviour pattern which are a normal consequence of addition of addiction in the family are all too often considered to be the cause of the addiction and the parents are characterised as poor parents and examples. Those who are to work with families living under this type of stress must to a significantly greater degree learn to distinguish between the original family problems AND the difficulties which slowly and unnoticeably develop under the pressure of a family member's drug abuse career. As a rule, the suffering of the family is greater that that of the addict since, in addition to their sorrow, helplessness, anger and anxiety they must also share the addict's difficulties. The researcher Valliant maintains: "Except for life in a concentration camp, there are few extended human conditions under which one is exposed to such sadism as that which a relative of a alcoholic must endure". From whom can the suffering relatives obtain help if society renounces all controlling intentions against the addiction group, i.e. toward the people who cannot, or do not want to solve their drug consumption problem?
Parent self-help groups and family and youth support groups are recognised in EURAD as a powerful tool in putting pressure on governments to examine their drug policies in the light of the expertise that these can offer. Legalising drugs would undermine all previous education and attitudes, thus putting the family unit into disarray.
Community and National
On the higher social level, a widespread intoxication culture is a threat to the political and financial development of a society. The abuse of intoxicating drugs causes reduced interest in politics, which erodes the democratic process. In itself abuse also gives rise to enormous humanitarian and economic costs for treatment, criminal institutions, drainage of brain power and production losses - in addition to the immeasurable value represented by the loss of a human life or the creation of a mentally handicapped individual.
A welfare society is eroded by drugs - legal and illegal. The spread of addiction results in increasing numbers of problems and thereby difficulty in living a worthwhile life.
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