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You can easily understand why the mainstream media get ever so excited about Green Party Leader Zack Polanski (the artist formerly known as David Paulden)
Polanski has ignited quite a media firestorm over the weekend with his call to legalise all drugs, including hard substances like heroin and crack cocaine. In a BBC interview, (where else?) Polanski declared that the war on drugs has “absolutely failed,” and advocated for an approach “led by public health experts, not politicians.” His views synch with a Kent Green councillor’s earlier plea for full legalisation, and mark a radical escalation beyond even the decriminalisation models adopted elsewhere.
Obviously there has never BEEN a war on drugs so his declaration falls at the first hurdle but this is where “progressiveness” leads – legalising self destructiveness,
Polanski’s fatuous argument hinges on his claim that prohibition fuels crime and burdens taxpayers by sustaining illegal markets and gangs. Yet this entirely glosses over the catastrophic risks of normalising access to the most destructive substances known to medicine. How much will the consequences of their availability burden tax payers?
Heroin and crack do not merely “fail public health”; they devastate communities and claim lives on an industrial scale. Legalisation would not magically transform these poisons into regulated consumer goods like alcohol. In fact it would most likely flood our streets with state‑sanctioned addiction. Polanski is either grossly naive or plain dangerous.
Polanski’s bizarre suggestion that current drug laws are “racist” is another instance of his dangerous rhetoric. He ignores the likelihood that overdose deaths and addiction rates amongst black and minority communities would likely skyrocket under his legalisation regime.
Polanski claims that he has never even drunk alcohol or taken drugs but trying to legalise Class A drugs is not a sober public health policy. This is reckless public endangerment dressed up as compassion.
It is worrying that many young people seem seduced by Polanski’ insane ideas.
