I am willing to be persuaded that legalisation of drugs is a good idea, but as long as they are illegal it's wrong to take them.
There are two reasons for this, one contentious and one incontestable. The first one - because laws in a democratic society should be obeyed - is open to the observation that it leaves no room for conscientious objection. The second however bears all before it.
It is that to take drugs illegally is to facilitate a worldwide criminal monster which causes chaos and misery wherever it reaches. It wrecks whole countries (think Colombia and Mexico) and blights the lives of millions. By all means campaign to get drugs legalised, but while they're illegal it's despicable to take them. Even just a bit of spliff now and again helps to keep the monster going.
Amidst the universally outraged reaction in the media and in society at large to the killing of the Hattersley policewomen, no-one mentions drugs. But drugs are the gangs' principal business. The demand element in their business, without which it wouldn't exist, comes from society at large.
Including, and probably disproportionately, the media.
