Where are drugs legal?*

Factual Questions
1

So pretty much all drugs, except alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs are illegal in the US. My friend just got back from Amsterdamn where, as we all know, pot is legal in places.

Are all drugs legal in, say, Columbia, or does the government frown on drugs there as well? How about Afghanistan - legal opium?

In Jamaica, is pot legal because it’s a part of the Rastafarian religion, or are all those guys breaking the law?

Is there anywhere you can go to legally shoot up heroin in the streets? How about dropping acid?

Do most other countries even care about drugs or have a drug problem? Is there drug trafficking in the rest of the world, on the same scale?

I think that was a few questions in one, but I haven’t posted an OP in a long time!

*Mods, please don’t shut this thread down. I want answers, not drugs!

2

IMHO, pot is legal in certain areas of the US.

Your question is tricky for two reasons, 1) drugs are legal 2) illegal drugs are illegal,
thus no where would they be legal.

Some of the illegal drugs are illegal because they are controlled substances,
e.g. one time I went to an ear, nose & throat doctor & on his counter was a bottle
of cocaine in liquid form.

3

I’ll help you out a little about the EU, as for the rest I have only historical fact that is of no relevance to your question.

Non-prescription drugs are in all theory illegal everywhere in the EU, including Amsterdam and the rest of Holland. They have been made legal in practice in some parts. These include Holland, most of the German States, Spain, Portugal an isolated community in Denmark and the same in England. Outside the EU, but in Europe; Zurich, Switzerland also represents a ‘haven’ for drug users. This de-facto legalization combined with generally lenient practice on reinforcing the illegality of possession ‘for personal use’ across most of the EU makes it very difficult to say where it is really legal to possess and consume drugs.

The manufacturing and distribution of drugs is once again illegal all over the EU, however the type of drug in question will again have some impact on ‘how illegal’ it is. Holland has the most lax rules in this regard, while as the peddling of hashish and grass will be tolerated opiates and opiate derivates like heroin will be cracked down upon on in a harsh way.

To explain how hard this is to answer I’ll give you the following example. The German supreme court has ruled that pursuing cases for possession of cannabis related products for ‘personal use’ is unconstitutional and a waste of valuable judicial resources. The definition of ‘personal use’ is however left to the state courts to define.

This has resulted in a situation were the federal states have varying effective drug legislation. In Bavaria I will be arrested if caught with any amount of hashish on me, I will however not be prosecuted if it is less than or equal to 5 grams. In Hamburg I can spark up a spliff in public and nary a police would react as long as I am not selling any. Now that is within the same legislation, imagine how complex it gets when you try to understand the subtleties over 15 national states with similar substructures within them.

To make it simple I’ll put it this way:

Magic mushrooms, cannabis kat, and drugs on that level in small amounts are pretty much OK in Europe and will not lead to any serious legal altercations as long as you do not manufacture or sell them. Everything else including coke, weirdness like special K and the newer designer drugs will get you busted big time, with some rare and very local exceptions. This pretty much applies to all of the EU, save Sweden.

Sweden has the harshest anti-drug laws in the Western world and even being under the influence of an illicit substance is a criminal offence. In other words if you are found to be DUI with THC in your blood you’ll not only get busted for the DUI offence, but also for the actual fact that you smoked pot. You might take solace in the fact that if you should be in that situation; Sweden has one of the most lenient penal codes and most relaxed prison systems in the world. Then again you don’t really deserve that since you shouldn’t have been fucking driving after smocking that joint, should you?

As I said, not an easy OP to answer. I think this has a little to do with the artificial nature of drug laws that are so dated that even conservatives and moderate conservatives like myself question their validity these days, and the fact that we are dealing with codifying culture under international pressure from other cultures.

Sparc

4

In Jamaica, marijuana is (was) illegal;yes all those people have been breaking the law. In February, the Jamaican government considered a law decriminalizing marijuana, but I don’t know whether it passed.

Opium has usually been illegal in Afghanistan, but its cultivation was often winked at. I don’t know if the current government has gotten around to that yet.

Every human society has a drug problem, and most of them take some action against it. Most of these actions don’t work.

5

IIRC from my few trips there, pot (or any other drug) is not legal in Jamaica. I think it may be legal only for Rastafarians in certain circumstances. Tourists in Jamaica looking for pot may wind up in a world of hurt, as, from what I was told upon arrival, entrapment isn’t exactly illegal. Last I heard, political movement was afoot to legalize it (pot) for everyone. This was a few years back.

6

I found out the other day I’m about to become a daddy for the first time. A lovely little girl is on the way. Ask me how shit scared I am about all the temptations she’s gonna face in the next 20 years or more…

I’m shaking guys!

7

Well, good luck with it Boo Boo…, I guess you were thinking about how to help her navigate past the seductions of Morpheus.

Anyway, Sparc gave a good summary for the EU, as best it can be expressed. Here in the U.S., Alaska is the only State I know of where possession of marijuana for personal use is absolutely legal, while sale is illegal. Some jurisdictions take the approach that Sparc describes in parts of the EU - it’s not, strictly speaking, legal, but we’re not going to pop you for a joint.

As new drugs appear there is always a time lag before they are criminalized. LSD was legal for almost 40 years after its discovery, and X was legal for a little while. Selling any new drug will likely land you afoul of the law unless you describe it as decorative beads, or some such.

Even then…

8

Hiya Sparc,

Just wanted to say, great post, very informative.

For the OP, here in .au, drugs are a problem, and are frequently the subject of election promises (“tough on drugs”, similar to the US, i think?), and are pretty large issue for most people. Front page news a few times a month, I guess (we have a huge coastline, most of it unpopulated, so the coast guard have a hard time stopping small boats coming in from neighboring countries, tho they regularly catch them with HUGE amounts of raw materials. 800Kgs of opium, i think was a recent one?

Dealing and manufacture of “hard” (crack, smack, speed, etc) drugs is dealt with very harshly (tho not as harshly as Malaysia, where it’s the death penalty for foreigners, not sure about locals?), prison sentences, etc. Dealing dope is a fine for the first offence, if it’s small amounts involved.

In some states (SA?) it’s legal to smoke but not to buy, or something weird like that. And in the ACT, it’s legal to grown your own, but not to sell, from memory.

HTH

abby

9

Sparc,
It seems to me Belgium recently made legal the possession of cannabis (or drugs in general??? Can’t remember) for personnal use. Three months ago or so…

10

I was in Nepal during Holi Festival, and cannabis is legalised there for the three days of the festival. It used to be legal year-round in Nepal, but the government outlawed it several years ago (and in response, the citizens of Kathmandu burned down a government building!).

11

In Portugal, possession of hard and soft drugs has recently been decriminalised. You can possess up to 10 days’ supply - which will be confiscated if you’re caught, and you can be sent for rehabilitation, but there’s no actual punishment.

12

It didn’t pass.

The United States in our infinite wisdom quickly stamped that out. A bit hypocritical if you ask me, in that a democracy should follow the will of it’s people, but not if it interferes with our own governments prohibition policies.

Not even.

It is, however, usually ignored - especially in the more touristy areas like Negril. Don’t buy it at the airport. Don’t buy from the first, second, or even third person who offers it. The further you get from the airport the safer and cheaper it becomes.

I’ve been there several times and have stayed in many different hotels from Negril to Montego Bay to Sav’ lamar (sp?) to Port Antonio to Kingston. Most times I have gotten it from the bellhop who brought my luggage to my room. In Kingston I got it from the hotel door man.

We often get it from other tourists we befriended who bought more than they could smoke and pass it along when they leave, and we always do the same. The funniest thing is when some smart guy breaks out his stash that he smuggled into Jamaica.

Just keep it quiet and don’t walk down the street smoking and you should be fine.

But it’s still illegal.

13

Just as a clarification, the “liquid cocaine” that an ear, nose & throat doctor has is in the form of a 1% solution - a little bit of cocaine dissolved in a lot of water, not pure cocaine in liquid form.

14

AFAIK, in British Columbia (Canada) Pot is legal for some medicinal use. In the District of Columbia (USA) and Columbia S.C., pretty much the same as the rest of the United States.
In ColOmbia (South America), pot, cocaine, opium, and all related drugs are illegal and possession or trade is punished with jail time (up to 30 years). Alcohol and Tobacco are legal but regulated (no surprises there).

IMO, all countries do care about drugs. And most of them have some sort of problem with them; wherever there is poverty or depression, drugs will provide an escape alternative, whether those are hard drugs, or soft ones, or substitutes (E, crack, gasoline or glue smelling), or alcohol. Drug consumption brings social problems, and drug trade brings an underground economy that greatly affects the surface economy (this due to prohibition).
Finally, if a country doesn’t openly fight drug trade, it will be aligned in the ‘pariah’ category, with fateful effects on international trading for this country.

15

Canadian justice minister says government considering decriminalizing marijuana possession

16

They did move in that direction as did some other EU states, but it’s not through yet.

While as I wrote my first post off the cuff, I might have missed some other parts as well, sorry about that. Here is a far more thorough view by the DEA on the situation in the EU.

What I found most remarkable while browsing over that page is the respectful and supportive stance on the EU methods for drug prevention that the DEA takes in the report.

For that matter, while browsing the DEA site I found the source where the OP should be able to get as full an answer to the question at hand as possible. This DEA page contains intelligence reports on the drug situation in the majority of the world’s regions.

Enjoy the read.

Sparc

17

Bad idea to use a general, and confusing, term like “drugs”, which includes everything from aspirin (a non-prescription drug) to Viagra (a prescription drug) to heroin (an illegal drug).

18

dirty1, we have a policy that prohibits posts giving advice on how to break the law and how to avoid getting caught. Don’t do that again.

This thread is becoming too much trouble to police, so I’m closing it. Questions and answers about what the law says are fine, but encouragement to break the law, advice on how to do so, etc., are not tolerated.

I will take this opportunity to remind folks that possession of marijuana, in addition to being illegal under the laws of most states, is also a Federal offense. States and localities are free to make their own laws, but they don’t override Federal law. Alaska, by the way, has in recent years re-criminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana (with an exception for medical marijuana).

bibliophage
moderator GQ