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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Letter: How will this solve problems?
Tom Hampson Leigh Reporter, UK
Wednesday 07 Dec 2005 ARE drug tests on arrest illegal? (Reporter, front page last week). First of all ask yourself are drugs the main cause of crime or are they a symptom of crime? Over the years Governments seemed to blame drugs for the majority of crime in our society. I’m not saying that all people who use drugs don’t commit crimes but the majority don’t commit crimes apart from taking illegal drugs. So the law creates a lot of crime that’s blamed on drugs and in my view people will always choose what to put into their own bodies no matter what the law says. This kind of drug testing sounds a bit illegal to me, to drug test people who are innocent of the crime they were thought to have committed and then force them into drug assessment with the threat of being fined or sent to prison if they refuse. How is this going to solve any problems with drugs and crime? PC John Burns stated that only those charged with an offence had easy access to treatment. People get easy access to drug treatments without committing crimes and if people want to come of drugs they will get help but if they don’t they won’t take that help even if the law tries to force it on them. So what used to be an offer for criminals is going to be compulsory for non-criminals. Just getting that “police state” feeling more and more these days and when you look at crime in America it makes me wonder why we keep trying to go the same way. Tom Hampson, Leigh Web: http://www.leightoday.net
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