People take drugs for the same reasons they drink
> "What struck me was that the young people seemed very
> happy to go through the scanners and that they wanted a
> night free of the problems you get with drugs," he told the
> Beeb.
What an idiot!
Most of the problems with drugs are caused by the prohibition of the damn things! It is obvious, but this MP seems to be unable to see it.
Most people, funnily enough, want to avoid problems when going out, but still want to get wrecked at the weekends. That is why they seem to accept intrusion with scanners - it is better than dealers having weapons in clubs (they do mean metal detectors by scanners, right?).
There is demand for drugs, and there always will be: fighting it is futile. When you then ban drugs you spawn an uncontrollable black market, where you get unpredictable products (variable strength and quality), full of people willing to use violence to settle market disputes.
I'm sure the MPs understand why people go out on the weekends and get rat-arsed, so what's there not to understand about going out and getting high? People do it escape the world where we slave for our banking overlords (does not most of what you earn go on rent or a mortgage? And is this not the same for virtually everyone you work with?), it's just drugs offer a subtly different escape than alcohol. I should think that the MPs are treating the drugs as somehow different to alcohol because that is what their rhetoric has spewed for years.... but the differences between alcohol and illegal drugs are rather meaningless in reality - alcohol is just a drug itself. The differences only persist because of the profits to be made through prohibition of some drugs: alcohol has competitors removed, there is a constant supply of users and small time dealers for the police to keep themselves busy with, the legal industry make plenty both prosecuting and defending this steady supply, and the big time organised criminals make huge profits, totally tax free.
Getting rid of prohibition would kill the profits to be made in the black market, making it less attractive for the immensely greedy. It would also mean that quality control can be enforced on drugs, making them safer.
No one in their right mind suggests we prohibit alcohol, so why do people think it would work for drugs? The only people who support prohibition of drugs do not know their history, or have not learnt from it.