No need to get surly, baldgye. You're the one who's not explaining yourself properly, here.
A) Cigarettes are heavily taxed to discourage smoking, there's no reason why it has to happen other than successive governments have decided to do it. Since we're talking about hypothetical legalisation of recreational drugs, I think we can safely assume that the taxation issue is up for debate as well. You're failing to explain why this taxation would be mandatory other than saying because cigarettes are, and because it's "simple logistics". These aren't proper reasons.
B) Even if drugs like heroin were taxed as heavily as cigarettes they would still be an order of magnitude cheaper than they are now. So the problems associated with heroin addicts resorting to crime to fund their habits would still be alleviated. As I said earlier, cigarettes are just as addictive as heroin, but smokers don't go out breaking into people's houses to pay for cigarettes, because they're still at a reasonable level. You ignored this point completely, to resort to insulting me instead,
C) Portugal didn't start their decriminalisation program purely to reduce HIV, despite what you're five minute skim-reading of Wikipedia might have told you.
D) That doesn't even matter anyway. It doesn't matter why they decided to decriminalise recreational drugs what matters is the effect it's had on drug harm - which it's reduced, contrary to your suggestions of what would happen in the UK. Regardless of what you try to claim the results are not meaningless and are comparable to what would happen in the UK. You're being childish to try and claim otherwise based on a trivial point regarding the incentive behind the program.
E) Portugal was a single example, i'm also talking about the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and the effects of alcohol prohibition in the USA. The trend is always the same, more prohibition equals more harm, and more crime in every instance.
