This happened in New Zealand a couple of years ago. It was the only way to close the Pandora's box of synthetic cannabis. Every time a substance was banned, a process taking months, a new, slightly altered one was on the shelves within literally days. If your intent is to ban psychoactive drugs, a whitelist is the only way it seems.

Legalizing regular cannabis would also close the Pandora's box, by making the production and distribution of synthetics uneconomical.

It would be easier for politicians not to take action if morons could stop getting themselves killed by getting drunk and then combining ecstasy and some random powders... Oh look some lovely headlines coming in now. How could anyone have known that there was a risk in that action??? The poor little teenager...

As someone who has zero skin in the game, I'm for full legalisation - but at the same time it has to come with taking responsibility for the consequences of choices - especially those taken whilst under the influence.

We don't "behave" so that the government will grant us some freedom, as if the government was our parents and we were little kids. That is fascism.

The government is put in place by the people, to serve the people.

Adults are responsible for their actions by default. All modern societies already have laws in place that criminalize harming others in most relevant ways. There is not need for any further discussion or "taking responsibility". It is only necessary to apply the laws that are already in place and respect the individual freedom of other adults. People who want nannies should hire their own and leave the rest of us alone.

You forgot another addition to the whitelist: any drug if you're a future Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer. Hard to believe the hypocrisy of Cameron and Osborne.

true, but on the other hand you can get caught with 1-2 grams of any powder, less than an oz of cannabis and nothing will come of it.

Anything you can argue in court is personal (which is quite a lot) and at worst you are looking at a few hours of community service in most cases.

The court sentence isn't the only consequence to be considered here. Having a criminal record could hurt future employment opportunities. Your parents will probably treat you like some drug addict and so on.

Might get a criminal record. Not a certain.

But it is not ideal granted. But compared to how it appears to be in the US. Coerced into being an informer, mandatory minimums etc - it isn't so bad