Hahaha, I do have some being a student once and seeing it first hand. Also a friend who ran a drug dependency clinic.
One lady down in Brighton OD’d and left a little girl now being looked after by an ex of mine so I have come into contact with this many times, bloody sad to see youngsters from all backgrounds and education.
The std questions on life and health insurance application forms was around “have you ever used drugs (not from doctors). I asked our Senior underwriter " who on earth answerd yes?”
They answered, MP’s, Lawyers and Doctors so thats where my answers came from.
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Is it coincidence that your (@Corona ) avatar looks like a dog with a spliff? 
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Show me a “hard nosed” anti-drug campaign that has worked.
I don’t think that there are any.
As @JohnH (and others) point out decriminalisation (not necessarily legalisation) of drugs and provision of a clean supply, support and supervision can do much to mitigate the harm drugs cause - much of which is actually the criminal association rather than the drugs themselves.
Admittedly the question I’m not sure how to answer is what do you do with non-addicts who want to try things out. Shrug and say “OK then”? You might argue that they will either be the sort of people who experiment a bit then get bored and move on or the type who would get addicted anyway so no difference overall.
The best way to avoid people becoming addicts in the first place is a good economy, jobs, access to good quality healthcare, affordable housing etc which gives people better lives so they don’t need to take drugs to escape a humdrum existence.
But the Tories (and typical RW administrations) just want to crack the whip harder.
It doesn’t work.
It has never worked.
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I can assure its a dog chew, we did take the picture because it looked like a cigarette.
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That may be key at one end of the social spectrum, I really cant comment as I dont know but the poor little rich kids in Purley at the Dome bar of the Railway Arms were all on their parents monthly allowance which was more than I earned as an apprentice. Just saying.
As I said some will want to experiment, some of those will wind up addicted. Whatever their social class.
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So what’s your point?
In my hippie youth, regularly enjoying taking illegal drugs and drug addiction were two very different worlds and, more importantly within my circle of teenagers, the former didn’t lead to the latter. In those years I smoked ‘pot’ (as it was) dropped LSD once a month and smoked opium whenever I had the (fairly rare) opportunity.
But I also became increasingly aware that for me, these substances didn’t enhance my creativity nor significantly contribute to my general need for exploration: instead, they became increasingly irrelevant. By contrast, in later years in London, coke became the Friday evening frivolous recreational drug of choice.
Looking back, several decades later, I’m often staggered by how much trust was placed in ones dealer, and so for me, government regulation and quality control guarantees seems a logical starting point. However, with any ‘natural’ product the strength can vary so much and perhaps we’ll learn more about this from those US states where marijuana is legal. Americans tend to develop things very thoroughly, though I can’t see opium being legalised anywhere soon and I imagine that others, like @Susannah might have a very different take to mine on that drug.
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And the red diesel 
I don’t think the counterfeit fag trads is in the same category as drugs though and it’s only a tax matter.
Bloody hell Mark!
Now I know what Dr is an abbreviation of 
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My understanding is that the “market forces” have lead to a steady increase in the strength available on the street through selective breeding.
Which suggests that free competition in this market sector might not be a good thing.
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No matter what your life is, people always want that little bit more, hence the enormous increase in the reasonably wealthy indulgence in recreational drug (coke) taking. It doesn’t mean they will become addicts though. To quote Robin Williams “Cocaine is natures way of telling you you’ve got too much money”.
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I’ve never taken it but always viewed coke as a “burning the candle at both ends” drug - maybe not as intense as amphetamines but both are a good way of having a heart attack in your 30’s
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So it’s not just me then.
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Actually the first place starts way before all of that. It involves being honest when educating children about drugs (illicit and the socially acceptable ones).
The current approach is to say, “drugs are bad, mmmkay” and to scare children into not taking them. Kids are told that if you smoke a joint then you’ll get addicted, and cannabis is a gateway drug so before you know it you’ll be injecting crack cocaine into your eyeballs.
The problem with this is that those kids will be exposed to people who do smoke cannabis at some point. They’ll realise that their hippie uncle who smokes weed smells a bit funny and talks shit but other than that they’re a fully-functioning member of society… And that’s when the kids will wonder whether the other stuff they were told about drugs is also incorrect, including the dangers to their health.
We should be honest and say people take drugs because they make them feel good or they allow them to be creative or they’re an escape from reality. But the flip side is the long-term physical harm to your body, the extremely unpleasant withdrawal symptoms, the high financial cost, the potential destruction of ambition, etc…
Either that or kids should be made to watch the film Trainspotting 
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And visit an addiction centre!
Prince Charles took his son Harry to visit Featherstone Lodge in the summer of 2001. The father knew his 16 year old was drinking too much and spending time with youths who were into ‘recreational’ drugs.
Cannabis reportedly, but illegal is illegal and there is always a risk some humans will be more addictive than others. Hooked on getting high then becomes an obsession, requiring increasingly powerful chemicals to achieve it.
The worry was not so much about the threat of media exposure as concern that a son could spiral downwards without understanding there can be a suction slope from ‘recreational’ into complete loss of control. I expect that seeing what addiction does to humans was a good wake up.
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I’m clearly in the minority in thinking that a decriminalisation of most drugs is the wrong approach to tackling the addiction and drug death problem in the UK.
I’d rather more resources are spent in getting people off drugs than allowing addicts to continue being addicts albeit in a controlled environment.
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These two things are not mutually exclusive, both are valid approaches that, when combined, can reduce the problems linked to drug addiction.
It’s pretty much the Portugal model, which you seem determined to ignore.
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Yes Mark, in my youth it would have been a rare Saturday night party that there weren’t a few joints going around. I still see many of those old friends now at lunches and get togethers a couple of times a year. There’s one coming up on the 17th. Some are retired solicitors, consultants, partners, CEOs, even a recently retired judge 
That said, I can immediately think of three that went off the rails over time and are no longer with us. The first one to go was through an overdose. He wasn’t a close friend and I only realised in retrospect he’s got into dealing. I guess I should have guessed as I was driving a FIAT 127 and he had a Datsun 240Z with no visible means of support