classifying drugs and criminalizing users

Looking at Noni you'd never suspect that she's a grandmother of six and a former speed addict. She believes that governments have done such a terrible job classifying drugs and criminalizing users that it might as well lift all bans and let people free to do as they like because they do it anyway.

"Like everyone starting out in life, I got into drugs when I left school, started work and fell in with a new crowd," says Noni. "Experimenting with drugs is a social thing to do and the illegal drugs were ALWAYS more tantalizing even though they cost more."

"When a drug is illegal there's an excitement about taking it that you don't get from a legal drug," explains Noni, "and it's this excitement, this risk-taking, that needs to go because it made me a speed addict."

"Speed or ice as they call it these days was my drug of choice simply because it wasn't main-stream," adds Noni. "I wanted to be different, and although a speed addiction is no worse than an addiction to alcohol or cigarettes it seemed worse because it was something I did in secret."

"I gave up on smoking and drinking very quickly when I discovered speed," says Noni. "Everyone thought I was a nice, wholesome girl for not smoking and drinking but they didn't know about my double life and where I got my incredible energy from."

"It's the same today with all the people who've been forced by social pressure to quit smoking," confides Noni. "You don't quit one drug without substituting it for something else, and that something may be far more dangerous in the long run if not in health costs then in leading a double life with the prospect of a criminal conviction down the line."

Read more by Noni on this subject:

legal v illegal drugs

stop crime, decriminalize drugs