Imagine a world.......

Where all drugs are legal

We have heard this arguments before but over at First Post,Duncan Campbell once more puts forward the proposition that by legalising all drugs we could lift the third world out of poverty.

The arguments and statistics are all there.An $18b estimated global business that has a mark up of soemwhere between 200-3000 %.

Examples from both sides of the world

In Afghanistan, we could also have a settlement as poppy farmers, no longer alienated by foreign attempts to deprive them of their living by destroying their crops, might agree to cooperate with the Kabul government

Whereas in America

young people being educated in college rather than jail.

Would it work? Well possibly in principle and

There would be a rash of Daily Mail stories about dead teenagers, but around the world governments would adjust to the fact that they will - perhaps only briefly - have to invest in health education and rehabilitation programmes with the same enthusiasm with which they once built jails;

Of course it would never happen if only because of the worldwide influence of drug cartels who would be unwilling to lose their massive profits.

But for idealism-quite brilliant