should all drugs be classifed class A

All of which would make sense if the current way of doing things made your examples impossible or even unlikely. Unfortunately that isn't the case.

Erm maybe more people eat breakfast cereal than use the above mentioned drugs??

For example 3 of us in my household eat breakfast cereal on a daily basis 7 days a week but none of us use cannabis or ecstasy, so i would imagine the chances of me dying from the drugs a greatly lower than choking on my all bran?!?!?

i,ve read most of this with some interest. however as someone who doesn.t advocate drug use(having lost family and friends to drink and drugs) we need to not miss the point.

currently the drugs trade accounts forabout 3% of world trade! yup something bill gates would soil himself for. however it ffers little to the economies it effects. more or less all heroin in the uk is afghan, grown by the taliban or familes forced to by them. most of our cocaine from south america where again warlords use it to fund their own principailities again more or less forcing growers.
hold this for a sec.

legalisation brings many benefits. firstly decriminalisation. so no costs to the criminal justice system. if available in a regulated manner like a measured dose of alcohol like when you go for a beer then you get rid of our own home grown gangsters and the violence ythat goes with it. anyone wishing to try it would get the REAL facts and make a choice based on fact. not what their mates say.

i.d make heroin free as it would probably be more cost effective thsn the current system. you.d have all the savings frm the criminal justice system to pay for it. insurance premiums would come down as most burglaries and thefts from cars are to fund drug use;85% of peeps in prison are for drug related aquisitive crime. you.d also have a safer community as police would be able to policing communities and getting to know them. and prrisons would be virtually empty!



we don't need a police state we need an open and honest frank debate on policy. We need people to read more than just a sun headline. Ifc fags and beer were discovered tomorrow they would be illegal. A drug is a drug regardless of whther it falls in a legal framework or not! This is about social responsibility not who are scum and who are not. Ask anyone with a drug problem and after you have cut throough the bravado they are not proud nor do they thinkit clever and they would give their right armnot to be an addict...and some do

ask a smoker how many times they have tried to give up. prohibition only creates a sub culture of cool to the vulnerable its time to deal withthis honestly. Unfortunately because most people have no idea of the real situation this will be a political hot potato for a good whilel yet.

Would you vote for someone saying review the system and look at legalisation/decriminalisation as a real option?

Until we do we itzs gonna get worse before it gets better.

Until then we need to educate our young people the good and thr bad and hope thst common sense prevails

That's one way of looking at it!

Just for a second take weed out of that equasion because it can be grown here.

How on earth would you go about making it legal in South America and Afghainstan? Because if it remained as it is now there how can you create a legal or even free market for something that's worth millions there? And the crime that goes along with producing and exporting it, who pays them to switch to doing the right thing? Do you think Columbia would legalise the production for such a legal buyer?

I see where you're going with this but you're a long way from the big picture.

So where does the money come from for the production? If they're free to consume, how do you pay for their production?

And greenhouses? If it could be grown in greenhouses do you not think that it would be, even on a small scale?

And again - the industry in these producing countries is worth far too much money to them for them to just say 'yeah ok, off you go grow, you're own'. They would do whatever was necessary to ensure that production elsewhere on that sort of scale never happened (even if it was possible). They're not the most reasonable of people you know.

All I'm saying is that its a very idyllic veiw but those ideals only go so far.

thanks for the comments

i think we need to remember that all our medical morphine also comes from afghan, the difference being we would just use more and the money would go to the growers...fair trade smack if you like.

the same goes with cocaine....

the money?

easy it takes around 1500 a week to keep someone in jail...and the cost to the economy...and yes it a long way off.

and as for the production no they wouldn't like it but what option do they have? without the funds they can't buy guns or pay to train militia.

idealist it may be, but i thought it was just a little different to add to the discussion, people will always make up their own mind but the fact remains current legislation ain't working here or abroad.

the only countries who are even beginning to make a difference are those who have liberalised the law and looked for a new way forward...check out canada, sweden and holland is now going that way too.

oh and we already grow our medicinal coca

"All I'm saying is that its a very idyllic veiw but those ideals only go so far"

idealistic it may be but isn't all policy idealistic at some stage?

'only takes one tree to make a thousand matches, only taks one match to burn a thousand trees'

wished i'd have said that lol

I do not think anyone else really believes it would be the cure all. but our current system is not working and some thing new needs to be done.

Last edited by on 31st Aug 2010 - 7:53pm; edited 1 time in total

haven't said that drug users won't go away. (the term junkies isn't a nice one...would you use the same term for a single mother on anti depressents for the last couple of years? cos there a gov't sponsored addict)

but it would reduce crime as is proven elsewhere particularly the more violent aspects...

what it is is tryin to use common sense and it does need something fresh cos at the moment it will only get worse as, if you follow social history, in times of recession drug use and alcoholism go up....

and with the correct regulation if drug users can't afford free we're in deep shit lol

forgot to mention that healthcare costs would come down too cos of earlyier interventions for dvt's, etc... so no icu beds for endocardiatus etc...

like i said originally i am no advocate for drug use but i believe in a common sense approach and that something differnent is needed, this is a 40 year old piece of legislation that is no longer fit for purpose, if you have a headache and parecetamol don't shift it you try summat else, its the same logic. the drugs issue in the uk has got progressively worse over the last 40 years this along with better 'social conditioning' in our schools regards education etc... and better awareness for adults too so we are aware of the issues.

instead we get the populist press giving mass marketing to substances which would otherwise be on the fringe of public psyche and while exciting the hedonists scarin aveage joe shitless....ergo public fear and the eventual press ganging of our statesmen into making irrational decisions and shite policy.....yup sounds like a plan

of course we have got a teenage binge drinking culture have we