drugs are a particular hate of mine for the misery and crime they produce
and after a conversation with a 40 year old marijuana user trying to help him sort out his problems it became apparent he was unable to laterally think or apply any sort of reasoned logic
as i knew this guy 20 years back he was smart and very level headed now it seems its just everyone else's fault to him
when i pointed out where his problems lie (smoking the dope )he became so defencive of it to the point he was almost shouting
the other thing the struck me was the way he demonised drink which seems to be a typical users way of vindicating what they do
to see the way its fucked up this guys life and his mind really made me think strongly about the classification of drugs
with death rates on the rise in drug related deaths .crime etc i think its time to ban all drugs regardless and classify them all as class A
a bbc link to drug related deaths
tell me what you think
Personally - I'd go the other way and completely legalise all drugs.
Prohibition doesn't work, and never has. Criminalising drug users / addicts only compounds the problem - like with your friend, used to be switched on/pro active chap, now the drugs have taken hold but our only response is to criminalise the addicts making them unemployable and pigeon holing them.
I have to wonder if it really achieves anything by giving youngsters criminal records for having cannabis on them, or any other drug for that matter. I believe it should be illegal to supply people under the age of 21 with any drug but after 21 we should be able to make our own choices.
The intention behind the drugs laws are good on paper, ie try to stop people from harming themselves, however it's been shown that it doesn't work. You can't make everything illegal because someone might die from it. Bubble was legal up to this year, kids were using it as a high, so the Government made it illegal. It's still being used, however now a drug called NRG is also coming in to the fore which is currently legal. The government's response will be to make this illegal as well - where does it stop ? Are we going to make climbing trees illegal because kids fall out of them and injure themselves.
I haven't got statistics to hand, but far more illnesses, deaths and violent disorder can be attributed to alcohol - so why is this drug legal but others aren't ? My view is that alcohol has become an accepted drug by society, so it is tolerated but the public's fear on other drugs is largely unsubstantiated, largely due to a lack of knowledge.
The drugs problem will not be solved by the criminal justice system but by the health system in providing support, and the education system by providing er, education.
You know Rob, for once I'm struggling finding a suitable response.
Clearly there are substances which should not be freely available and I would agree entirely, those with a less classification and regarded by some as "harmless" clearly do have a devastating effect on peoples lives - your friend a case in point!
But how far to go?
I have never knowingly taken any illegal substance but to overcome a recent skeletal problem I began taking some tablets I was able to get from the pharmacy here without prescription.
I began to become dependant on these tablets, finding that I had to take one earlier and earlier each night. Incredibly, further research showed that these tablets were indeed addictive and I stopped taking them right away but it just goes to show and begs the question "how far do you have to go?"
Even with so called 'soft' class z drugs etc it wouldn't be long before deaths and illness were attributed to their use if legalised. their availability would create dependency.
it seems like we can 't live without a variety of medications, aspirin, paracetemol etc.
i'd be stuck if i couldn't get a decent cup of tea!
Imagine getting a 7 year sentence for drinking extra strong breakfast tea?
legalising doesn't mean drugs will be any more available. There are many drugs that are legal now that are only available on prescription.
And I would stick my neck out and say that most illegal drugs aren't taken by the stereotypecal junkies that spring to mind when talking drugs, but the Saturday night crowd who want a pill to go clubbing with, or a bag of coke for a good night out. They are IMO the biggest users. They're normal everyday folk the rest of the time but like to party a little harder than most.
Hmmmmmm a tricky dilema.
As all class A drugs are illegal if we were to make them all legal, would we still have the same ammount of addicts or, in my opinion we would have a lot more.
Drugs will ruin lives whether they are freely available or not...it matters not.
The British Government will never ever legalise the likes of cocaine or heroine.....ever.
But also if you made them available would the drug dealers still target the young, I mean the very young?
I smoke yet the new laws that have been passed recently, and I do not see a difference except pubs closing down. Now they have come up with a crackpot idea of banning shops from having them on open display. Will that really stop people from smoking or taking up the habit? I think not.
I feel that the laws are fine as they are, but I would certainly up the sentences for pushers.
As I said at the start............. a tricky one.
It's not just about the deaths caused by drugs though Forest, breakfast cereals, however murderous, dont cause the misery and suffering or the crime that drugs do.
Bit of both I guess. Some drugs cause more physical problems, others more social problems. Catagorising them all the same isn't that useful. They all have different impacts.
Herion addiction for example, is a lot more damaging to society than say prescription sleeping tablets without prescription. And without the prescription they are just as illegal to posess. What good does having them in the same catagory of drugs serve?
Haha! :laughabove::laughabove::laughabove: So does cocaine
Just because something is illegal doesn't make it worse than what is currently legal.
If we go the way of banning everything that is recreational (as opposed to medicinal) and is known to be harmful. The first ones to go would be alcohol and nicotene. Cigarettes especially have no safe minimum and zero health benefits.
I also agree that prohibition doesn't work. And you can't legislate for idiocy. All you can do is bring your own kids up to treat such temptations intelligently.
I feel the best way to tackle it is 2-fold. Social engineering - basically make being drunk, stoned etc etc etc seriously un-cool. And harsh - very very harsh - penalties for getting oneself into that state. The message being - you can take the stuff if you choose, but you WILL be held responsible for it and you WILL pay for it.
HUGE job. It would be nice but sadly, with things like binge drinking on the increase it's not likely that it would be made so socially unacceptable any time soon. If anything young people do drugs to be sociable. Where do you start to turn that around?
nice thoughts but how many know the current levels of thc (active ingredient)and what levels are considered safe
short term effects ,long term user mental health effects ,and also how things like skunk are grown and whats added to make it more potent and more importantly addictive !!!
i doubt many people know just how different modern home grown drugs are compared to drugs of ten or twenty years ago
Drugs legislation in the UK is all about politics and nothing to do with common sense. Regrettably popularity politics means reacting to socially uneducated hysteria and rather ironically stimulating the underworld criminal fraternity every time another substance is banned.
De crimininalising ALL drugs is the most sensible and pro active step any government could take as it would rid the streets of the criminality that occurs to fee illegal drug habits. make the substances available at health centres on some kind of register/prescription and the crime issue dissappears overnight. Sensible - yes, political suicide - unfortunately - yes. Just as long as the masses remain ignorant of the pyschological flaws in the rationale behind criminalising drugs we will all continue to suffer from drug related crimes.
When I was 17 I toddled off to college to avoid the recession, my CSE in Technical Drawing sufficient at the time to secure a place at Balsall Common Polytechnic reading Production Engineering and Origami.
One of my brothers (they are all somewhat older than me , my conception being planned to ensure a move from a two bedroom council flat to a new 3 bedroomed house) was a research chemist. As I left for my first semester clutching my snap tin in one hand and thermos flask in the other he stuffed a hastily written note into my ear. Later when somebody read it to me I discovered it said "Here are two lists of drugs you will be offered. The ones on the left are worth trying the ones on the right will seriously fuck you up or potentially kill you first time so don't bother. Whatever happens dont take any of em all the time or every day or in huge quantities."
This note worked like a charm, I had no interest in the illicit drugs I was offered and have never really bothered with any of them.
Alcohol is directly responsible for the deaths of more people every year in the UK than all the class A drugs put together. Leah Betts was a young lady who died of ecstasy usage. Nobody knows the name of the teenager who died of alcohol poisoning the same night. I sometimes wonder why.
OK...
Deep breath...
If we're going to talk about the risk involved in consuming a substance, don't talk about total number of deaths. On any given Saturday night one person might die from Ecstasy, three from alcohol. If you don't know the number of people who have consumed those substances in total, you can't calculate the risk involved. One death from 100,000 people who have taken E makes it much riskier that three people dying of the ten million who have taken alcohol.
Prohibition isn't working, claim some. What are the objectives of prohibition? I'm not sure I know. I'm pretty sure I know that legalization of drugs won't reduce the rate at which they're taken, and it won't persuade the drug sellers to go legit either. So what's the objective of legalization? Tell me the answer and we might know what data we need to assess the proposition.
As for medical marijuana, tell me where the peer reviewed evidence is and I'll start to agree or consider the argument.
Bloody hell Google.............that actually is refreshing.
I actually agree with most of what you said there...............swoon.
There are peer reviewed scientific journal articles that explore the medicinal use of marijuana and conclude that on balance it can be pretty effective depending on circumstance.
Abandonment of the prohibition approach to hard drugs will of course stop the dealers in their tracks. Most recreational drugs cost pennies to manufacture and only attract a high premium because of prohibition. Many of the problems with recreational drugs arise because of their high price and variable quality.
I can accept that it is difficult to prove that alcohol carries more or less risk than other recreational drugs. I worry more about my kids hurting themselves with alcohol than other drugs simply because alcohol is cheap, easily obtained, socially acceptable and its associated risks are not widely understood.
