Experts from many countries are working together to assess the dangers of this new social problem. Jim Callaghan
You’ll never win the war against drugs. Jim Duffy, DI Strathclyde police (retired)
Tonight: the legal highs with the devastating lows ... Some of these substances have been linked to fifty deaths. Tonight: Dying to Get High, ITV 2013
Drug drivers – just how many are on our roads? Tonight: Drug Driving, ITV 2013
One of the ways we finance the growth of multinational corporations and big banks and the rise of the Dow Jones is by selling narcotics to our children. It’s one of the most profitable businesses in America. Catherine Fitts
We are addicted to drugs profits. Catherine Fitts
373: That’s the average number of painkillers we each take in a year. Is it too many? Doctors say yes. They fear the nation is becoming addicted to pills sold over the counter, with many people taking six every time they feel ill. The Independent Health & Family section, article Steve Bloomfield Sunday 20th November 2005
The real problem is drug prohibition. Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s2e4: The War on Drugs, Showtime 2004
The issue is moral and ethical. The issue is freedom. ibid.
A $20 billion a year waste of our money. This ridiculous prohibition has been a favourite political tactic of every power-hungry whack-jobs following in Nixon’s random staggering lying insane footsteps. ibid.
Heroin is more than six hundred times cheaper than it was before the War on Drugs. ibid.
We are filling our prisons with these non-violent drug offenders. ibid.
There’s a name for this kind of bullshit – voodoo psychology. ibid.
America’s Public Enemy Number One in the United States is drug abuse. Richard Nixon, televised interview
To defeat this enemy it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive. Richard Nixon
Homosexuality, dope, immorality in general. These are the enemies of strong societies. Nixon by Nixon: In His Own Words, Sky Atlantic 2018
Since Argentina’s 1991 economic crash its streets have been flooded with Paco, a highly addictive inexpensive narcotic derived from cocaine. Deadliest Drugs, short film Argentina’s New Crack, Manuel Contreras
Jonny was addicted to Paco. He now lives in a squat in La Boca where he tries to look after his friends suffering from addiction. ibid.
Paco is popular in the poorest neighbourhoods. Groups of mothers banded together to fight the spread of Paco. ibid.
Paco addiction kills at least two people a week in La Boca. ibid.
The term G is short for a very very fast growing recreational drug in the partying and clubbing environment. And especially within the gay community. G is a clear odourless liquid which is very cheap and easy to get hold of in the UK. And a lot of people are now using it as a replacement to ecstasy ... If it is taken in high amounts or mixed with other depressants such as alcohol it can be quite dangerous. Deadliest Drugs: GHB, short film
GHB is rarely identified as the cause of death. Anecdotally, however, the number of young lives lost is alarming. In 2007, one London club alone saw the deaths of five young men and many paramedics say the number of casualties is increasing. ibid.
During the 1960s J Edgar Hoover, the then Chairman of the FBI, allowed the drugs trade to flourish within the African-American community in an attempt to undermine the black communities uprising within American societies ... The CIA allowed drugs to be traded into America. Shadows in Motion
I personally witnessed complicity between these two men – Bush and Clinton – in terms of transporting cocaine into the US for the purpose of sale to generate money to fight a war – that war at the time was the conflict in central America involving the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Terry Reed, Air Force Intelligence, interview Alex Jones
It began to become clear that the global traffic of drugs were funding violent dictators, rigging elections, supporting the arms trade and enforcing the assassination of anyone who got in the way. Bernays & Alex Jones, Invisible Empire – A New World Order Defined, 2010
Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is. The destructiveness and human wreckage mock our heritage. Ronald Reagan
If you are a casual drug user, you are an accomplice to murder. Nancy Reagan
More than forty years have passed since Nixon first announced the war on drugs. And despite nine million people today incarcerated on drugs charges, and trillions of dollars being thrown at the problem, evidence suggests that drugs are purer, cheaper and more widely available than ever before. Howard Marks on Drugs, 2010
At the height of his profession Marks was globally shipping up to thirty tons of hashish. ibid.
Like ten million other British people Howard smokes cannabis. ibid.
Cocaine: it’s been described as the alchemy of prohibition. ibid.
Cannabis has been decriminalised in Holland. ibid.
‘Drugs might not only be profitable to corporations and the taxman they could also have greater benefits to society.’ ibid.
The drug industry has been the most profitable industry by far year after year. Drug companies need profits to conduct research, but how much is enough, when most profits go to marketing, promotions and the development of unneeded me-too drugs? Dr Jay S Cohen
The whole process about thinking rationally about drugs was disrupted by the last government. Professor David Nutt
The biggest harm of cannabis at the moment is that you get a criminal record if you’re caught with it. That’s why I’ve been so keen to get the harms in proportion. Professor David Nutt
There are three separate aspects of drugs: there’s the scientific aspect – how harmful drugs are – there’s the moral aspect of whether people should take them or nor – and there’s the political dimension. And when those three get muddled we get into the sort of chaos we have currently. If it was simply about health, we would have a very different Misuse of Drugs Act ... If it wasn’t moral, it would look quite different. There’s definitely a moral element that has crept in. I don’t know why. I’ve wondered about this. Does it actually matter if kids go and have fun? ... I’m intrigued by, always have been intrigued by, this issue – which started I think back in the ’40s with people smoking cannabis – and the sense that we don’t want people smoking cannabis! Well why not? Because it’s bad for their health. But it’s not that. The real, the underlying drive for a lot of legislation on drugs is actually they don’t like young people or other minority groups in society doing something that isn’t mainstream. Professor David Nutt
Once a drug is illegal, you cannot have a rational debate about it, not with a politician at least. Professor David Nutt, Imperial College London, ex-government drugs’ tsar
It’s a heavy trip. I slept for thirty-six hours, man. The Trip 1967 starring Peter Fonda & Susan Strasberg & Dennis Hopper & Bruce Derm et al, director Roger Corman, bloke in psychedelic house
You here for some acid? ibid. her to him
Turn off your mind. And relax. And then just float down the stream. ibid. geezer to Fonda
I can see right into my brain. ibid. Fonda
I used to think that making drugs illegal was simply common sense. This series is about why I’ve changed my mind. Because it doesn’t work. I believe that the war on drugs is now doing more harm than the drugs themselves. Angus MacQueen, Our Drugs War: Everyone’s At It, 2010
It’s blindingly obvious why we’re not controlling the demand for drugs here [Edinburgh]. They’re simply not addressing the reasons why so many people feel they want to take them. ibid.
Remember, it’s not just the police; we also clog our courts, we fill our prisons with petty drug dealers. What’s the point when not even the police believe they are affecting the supply? ibid.
Urban Smuggler: Andrew Pritchard: the riveting life story of one of the most prolific smugglers of our time ... His latest project is an on-line game. He markets himself as Britain’s most successful former smuggler. ibid.
Catching one kingpin merely gives rise to another. ibid.