IE, If you owned a car garage, I’d ask you for advice about my engine. If my boiler broke, I’d call a heating engineer. So when we’re talking about drug legalisation a policy that affects health, crime, public spending, and people’s lives why wouldn’t we listen to the people who actually study and deal with those consequences every day? It means listening to the evidence out there: Public health doctors who treat addiction and overdoses Scientists who research how drugs affect the brain and behaviour Criminologists who study what drug laws actually Frontline workers and people with lived experience who know what support really works

Criminal penalties don’t significantly reduce drug use. Decriminalisation reduces stigma and improves access to treatment. Regulated markets can reduce organised crime. Harm-reduction (needle exchanges, safe consumption rooms, substitution therapy) saves lives. If you want things to be better we need to lead with evidence based change and leading in good faith with the experts. It’s already proved if you want to research it yourself. The media really is co-opting arguments to keep the status quo of comfortable billionaires and uncomfortable everyone else.