The secret diary of a microdoser # 5
The time has come to end Prohibition . It doesn ’ t work . It has never worked as a strategy for protecting humans against the perceived danger of drugs .
The War on Drugs , kicked off by Nixon in the 1960s , was not a war on drugs but a war on hippies , a war on the counter-culture of America , a war on protesters who were burning their draft cards , refusing to be sent to Vietnam . Nixon wanted to control them , to enforce his will upon them , to hurt them . And eventually he was shown to be the morallyinept criminal that he was . But the War on Drugs persisted .
The baton was picked up by Nancy and Ronald Reagan who , dressed in their corny Christmas jumpers , encouraged us all to “ Just Say No ”. They would save us from ourselves with all the wholesome righteousness of an advert for Werther ’ s Originals , with their sad parental eyes , with their good intentions , with their god . And yet the use of drugs exploded . As did the use of semi-automatic weapons south of their border . As did the solvents , used to extract the coca paste from the leaf . Their toxins poured down the Amazon tributaries , scarring the landscape and poisoning the rain forest . All because the power of perceived morality outweighed the benefit of legalisation that would have kept us far safer and saved millions of lives , be those of consumers , soldiers or manufacturers . It would have poured billions of dollars into the economy instead of incinerating them in the breath of flame throwers that torched Columbian coca plantations .
The same moral showmanship that politicians find so addictive intoxicated Rishi Sunak and led him to promote a phased approach to banning smoking . The bill ’ s second hearing , strengthened to include restrictions on vaping , passed in November 2024 with an overwhelming majority of 415 to 47 . But all that will be achieved is to send one of the most addictive substances in the world underground . They will simply push its revenue into the hole of the black market , feeding another cartel and creating yet another Al Capone .
The key thing to understand is that legalisation does not mean social acceptance . It means regulation . No more , no less . It requires us to see recreational drugs as a health issue rather than a criminal one . The fact of the matter is that cocaine is cheaper to produce than sugar , ( another addictive drug , incidentally , that stimulates the same dopamine receptors as cocaine , and causes : Obesity , Heart and Liver Disease , Cancer , Type 2 Diabetes , Depression and Anxiety , oh , and makes your teeth fall out ). A kilo of sugar costs around £ 1.50 . A kilo of cocaine , wholesale ( not street price ), is around £ 30,000 . The difference between those figures could otherwise be viewed as “ Tax ”. As long as we can provide a better product than the Albanians ( which let ’ s face it , isn ’ t hard ), that tax will give us the funds to p l o u g h into youth projects , drug awareness courses , community schemes , addiction support centres , funds to keep our pensioners warm over the winter , and yes , even funds to “ Save the NHS ”.
But , of course , the real stumbling block is far more hidden and much more ominous . According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime , approximately $ 2 trillion is laundered globally each year and the City of London is a key cog in that machine . So , if you legalise drugs , there ’ s a risk that the banks will crash and our economy will go into freefall . And that is the real fear that perpetuates this nonsense that is clogging up our judicial system and our over-flowing prisons . But the solution is quite simple at the end of the day . Deal with the devil , bring in the likes of Philip Morris and British American Tobacco , who can immediately and simultaneously inject the billions of dollars required in the first few years . Legal investment that can replace the dirty cash that the suits in the city spread on their canapés . Give our farmers a new crop to grow instead of scything them down with inheritance tax which will break up farms into uneconomic small holdings only to be bought out by corporates .
Simply put , we can ’ t afford Prohibition any more . We ’ re broke . The Tories stole all the money . The state of our roads is the most obvious metaphor of that sad fact . I ’ m not a Brexiteer but this is one good thing that could come out of that woeful referendum . Legalising drugs , all drugs , is the way in which we can reduce our National Debt without victimising any one sector . Since legalising recreational marijuana in 2014 , the state of Oregon has generated over $ 7.1 billion in revenue . By imposing a 17 % state tax on marijuana sales , with an additional 3 % optional local tax , the state has allocated funds to a wide variety of essential public services . Given that the population of the UK is over 16 times the size of Oregon , the UK could expect to see over £ 10 billion in annual revenue from cannabis alone . If you
extrapolate the numbers across the board of all illicit drugs and include the savings in the justice and penal systems , sending the strategy of Prohibition to Room 101 would , in one move , resolve our country ’ s £ 2.7 trillion National Debt within a decade and put us in the black for the first time in over 300 years . Stay safe , Ray , Brighton , 2025
For back issues visit Instagram . com / SDOAM . TheRayman or substack . com /@ sdoamtherayman l Editor ’ s note : The Whistler does not condone Ray ’ s opinions . We chose to publish this as we know there are many microdosers in the city . But remember , what works for Ray may not work for anyone else .
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