ABSTRACT
Although it is common to deal with the arguments for and against legalisation under separate headings, I intend to deal with them together in the same (and therefore rather long) chapter. To split them from each other is to decontextualise them; to treat them as if they only stand or fall alone or exist in a vacuum. In fact, ideologically and pragmatically they are intensely inter-twined and very often cannot be accepted, rejected or properly evaluated without reference to the other(s). In addition, to treat them as distinct is merely to reinforce the polarisation that often characterises this debate and which seems doomed to leave us permanently divided, with no real prospect of ethical resolution. Of course, it might be argued that resolution is in itself not desirable; that if we were able to accommodate each side of the argument we would merely achieve a lowest common denominator account of an unusually important issue. This will be returned to in the fi nal chapter of this book. It is important to note at the moment, however, that treating the arguments together is not undertaken for the purpose of fi nding a compromise but rather so that their richness, and particularly the richness of the confl icts between them, can be clearly observed.
