Date/Time 19 Dec 2013 1:59:31pm It's neither good or bad. It
depends what you are trying to achieve.  If the aim is to reduce
drug consumption, then decriminalisation is not really achieving
that. There is a fairly large group of drug addicts that simply
does not respond to drug rehabilitation programs.  If the aim is
reduce crime, the article doesn't provide criminal statistics.
So it's hard to judge the impact on crime, although intuitively
you would think crime would drop.  The biggest fear was that
decriminalisation would lead to higher drug consumption., that
hasn't happened  The next controversial step is, should you
provide free heroin to hard core drug addicts, the ones who for
whatever reasons are not responding to drug rehabilitation
programs.  The Swiss are thinking about it, or conducting a
trial I think, and that raises some thorny ethical questions
about moral hazard and duty of care towards patients.  We don't
medically ply alcoholic with free booze, gambling addicts with
free chips etc...Why s