“There is huge technical development happening in drugs. We are only just around the corner from memory-enhancing drugs. Middle-class parents will be looking for them to dope up their children to enhance their points. We are also close to safe euphorants and drug users won’t be reliant on peasant farmers.A Grand Vizier writes: “That may sound like the blurb for an undiscovered Philip K. Dick novel, but no – it’s the conclusion to a superb interview conducted by the Irish Times’ legal affairs editor, Carol Coulter, with Dr Paul O’Mahony and published on Saturday. Dr O’Mahony has just had THE IRISH WAR ON DRUGS: THE SEDUCTIVE FOLLY OF PROHIBITION published by the Manchester University Press, and has some perceptive things to say about why the war on drugs is unwinnable, and why that has always been the case.
“The future is much more dangerous than the present. Prohibition can’t handle the present. It certainly won’t be able to handle the future.”
“Personally, I’d argue that the decriminalisation / legalisation of heroin, ecstasy and coke, et al, would be a very bad idea indeed, as it’d blow a huge hole below the waterline of the good ship S.S. Criminal Motives for most of the crime writers I like to read. But that’s just me. And right now I’m out of my box on some grade-A Purple Ninja, which kicks like a mule with five legs, albeit so subtly I can’t remember if it was a spliff, a microdot or a stiff belt of poitÃn. So I’m probably not the most qualified person in the world to comment. You, on the other hand, are …”
