A recent subject on the above TV breakfast show was around the subject of legalising the use of “drugs”.
One of our members: Lesley send in the following response giving her reasons for not legalising drugs, Lesley sadly lost her son Matthew to drugs so can speak from the heart as well as with some knowledge:
“Dear Good Morning Britain team,
Firstly, thank you for providing an opportunity for bereaved parents to discuss, however briefly, the difficult subject of legalising drugs.
I am one such parent, having lost my twenty year old son to a combination of heroin and alcohol. Since his death I have joined forces with two other bereaved mothers to help run a small Yorkshire charity, The Luke and Marcus Trust, whose purposes are to support families bereaved by drugs and alcohol, and to educate children and adults about the dangers of drugs usage, which we do by going into schools regularly. The feedback we receive from schools is proof of how important and impactful good drugs education is.
I have met your guest, Elizabeth Burton Phillips on several occasions. She is a well informed and dedicated leader in the pro education field.
Legalising drugs is not the answer to the problem. Legalising alcohol and tobacco has not solved the problem of alcohol deaths nor tobacco related deaths; education is helping to reduce them however. Good education in these topics, via various methods including the media, is the way forward, combined with high quality rehabilitation services. Reducing the demand for drugs in the first place, through education, will go a long way to winning the ‘war on drugs’.”
