Drug Policy

Yummy.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Drugs such as heroin are illegal.

Is that an advantage or just you clearing up our current policy?

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Ivana

Is that an advantage or just you clearing up our current policy?

I wasn't actually replying to your post, I just felt like saying something which could be misconstrued as a reply.

What do you think?

[Dante Hicks]

They allow fantastic profits to be reaped by those willing to violate the law and in some cases, employ extreme violence. These profits can then be reinvested in important community development work like pimping, people smuggling, protection rackets, etc.

The law allows those of dodgy moral standing to use drugs to influence gullible young ladies into bed with them (I'm told).

(In short, not a lot)

And heroin being illegal clearly sucks. Apart from a whole price issue, there's no reasonable certainty of quality which means people randomly dying from a bad dose here and now. It also leads things like overdoses to be proportionaly more likely.

[acropolis]

1. blacks in prison
2. other minorities in prison
3. while searching minorities for drugs, occasionally find weapons
4. it gives kids the oppurtunity to do something illegal without doing anything dangerous
5. keeps the price of drugs up, allowing intelligence groups to have funding sources off the books
6. drugs are bad
7. if they were legal, pharmaceutical companies would gouge us
8. 'i thought i smelled pot' makes for a catchall excuse for search/seizure

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

I wasn't actually replying to your post, I just felt like saying something which could be misconstrued as a reply.

What do you think?

it was good.

Originally Posted by acropolis

1. blacks in prison
2. other minorities in prison
3. while searching minorities for drugs, occasionally find weapons
4. it gives kids the oppurtunity to do something illegal without doing anything dangerous
5. keeps the price of drugs up, allowing intelligence groups to have funding sources off the books
6. drugs are bad

1&2: minorities in prison is good?
3: ok, happens to non-minorities too.
4:so would legalizing with an age limit.
5: The NHS could have the money and treat adicts.
6: only because they are illigal.
7:I forgot this one cos I just smoked a spliff
8:Great!

Surly these are just ways that our drug policy intrudes on our freedom?

ps, my cig just literaly exploded.

[Deciduous]

I'm with Ivana on this one, I don't understand why selling highly addictive, potentially lethal substances is against the law.
They should also introduce a "Snap, Crackle and Pop a cap in yo ass" scheme whereby children can save tokens from cereal and send off for firearms.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Deciduous

I'm with Ivana on this one, I don't understand why selling highly addictive, potentially lethal substances is against the law.

To save time, can we just all pretend someone has said "wot, like ciggies, lol!" and you've tried to establish some spurious difference between alcohol/tobacco & cannabis/ecstacy?

Then we can move on with the thread. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Deciduous

I'm with Ivana on this one, I don't understand why selling highly addictive, potentially lethal substances is against the law.
They should also introduce a "Snap, Crackle and Pop a cap in yo ass" scheme whereby children can save tokens from cereal and send off for firearms.

People can still buy drugs, its just that they can only buy drugs from criminals.

[Deciduous]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

To save time, can we just all pretend someone has said "wot, like ciggies, lol!" and you've tried to establish some spurious difference between alcohol/tobacco & cannabis/ecstacy?

Then we can move on with the thread. Thanks.

Hey who ever said I condoned the sale of tobacco or alcohol?

prohibition didn't work.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Deciduous

Hey who ever said I condoned the sale of tobacco or alcohol?

No-one. You mentioned you didn't understand why addictive potentially lethal drugs were illegal (sarcasm one presumes). Either way, cigarettes and alcohol are legal.

[Deciduous]

I thought the breakfast cereal reference would have hammered that home.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Deciduous

I thought the breakfast cereal reference would have hammered that home.

Yeah it did, but never presume on the internet (that's the 37th rule after all the crap about no-women, no shouting, not using AOL, etc, etc).

As I say, the point applies if you're being sarcastic or not, which is why I mentioned it.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by idimmu

drugs make crap people crapper

Is that for or against drugs policy?

isn't that just because the people dealing are willing to break the law?

[Deepflow]

Originally Posted by idimmu

drugs make crap people crapper

and it makes good people brilliant!

[IncubusGod]

Everyone I know who deals does it cause they cant be arsed to make alot of money with hard work.
Illegality of drugs means that numerous people will not get hooked on heroin,crack or coke. Others will but those are the type of people who are so intent on procuring mind altering substances that no matter what you do,how many things you make illegal,how many drugs you get rid of,they'd still find some way of getting mashed out of their heads.
And it will still be dangerous to them and their health.

If tobacco is legal then cannabis should be legal,however I dont think tobacco should be legal. Theres more of an argument for cannabis being legal than tobacco.

Clearly I am happy enough with the way things are. Heroin,coke,crack should be illegal. If no-ones going to ban tobacco then they may as well legalise something that has some actual benifical effects,cannabis, instead of a highly addictive substance that makes the pushers billions. Tobacco.

In regards to E,speed,uppers,downers etc I dont care.They should still be illegal.But not in the same category as the big 3.
That is my opinon.

This may change depending on mood,state of mind,alcohol intake,humidity. etc.

[djbass]

flip the coin

I would like some dis-advantages to your current drugs policy.

I can think of none.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by djbass

I would like some dis-advantages to your current drugs policy.

1. Put's control of a valuable resource (to some people) in the hands of (often) dangerous criminals.
2. Means prices are dramatically higher than necessary which means that people who are addicted simply have to commit crimes to get access to drugs.
3. Means people who want to only take softer drugs have to associate with often dangerous criminals (see #1) in which to get them. This can lead to pressurising into taking harder drugs.
4. No quality control, which means people ocassionally take random stuff and end up dying/injured unnecessarily.
5. Removes individual freedoms.
6. Contributes to a bloated prison population & requires massive police funding.
7. Means large sums of money flows to criminals who use to fund other criminal activities.

There are others, but that'll do for now.

[djbass]

I consider most of that to be using the bad to justify the bad.

Ok so you reduce the potential for the drug to more lethal than it already is and allow it to come into wider distribution? Are you then really reducing the problem or simply upping the averages. (more people taking cleaner & higher quality drugs that can still be potentially lethal means instead of 7 out of every 8 drug users dying you get 15 of out of every 25 etc).

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Ivana

I would like some advantages to our current drugs policy.

I can think of none.

It's nowhere near well publicised enough to gain my attention long enough for me to be bored by it.

[Dante Hicks]

I don't see the problem in people hurting themselves, if they know the risks.

The problem is that right now, when you buy (illegal) drugs you don't know the risks. From being arrested, to getting attacked to buying a dodgy pill. The latter could cost you your life. I don't think that's fair.

Individuals knowing that cigarettes are killing them, and then doing it anyway doesn't really bother me because the risks are well known and relatively stable. The same can't be said for injecting heroin or taking ecstacy or whatever.

[Deciduous]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

To save time, can we just all pretend someone has said "wot, like ciggies, lol!" and you've tried to establish some spurious difference between alcohol/tobacco & cannabis/ecstacy?

Just another point, alcohol can cause a physical depence, which is different from an addiction.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Deciduous

Just another point, alcohol can cause a physical depence, which is different from an addiction.

Are you classifying heroin as a substance which causes a physical dependence or merely an addictive substance. Just wondering as it's actually possible to get addicted to carrots.

[Deciduous]

Herion is addictive, there is no point asking for my classification.
Why do you say 'merely' addictive, physical dependence is a lot less serious and easier for the person involved to deal with/get treated for.

[Deepflow]

physical dependency goes WITH psychological dependency... its harder to stop when you have both.

[JonnyBGood]

Because physical dependence is often accompanied by psychological addiction and I was making clear the difference between the two rather than ignoring the seriousness of one of them. Alcohol can also cause a psychological addiction much as heroin or any other drug or anything really so I wasn't really too sure what your point was in your post bar "hay this one substance does something which a lot of others does some of the time" which isn't really much of a point.

[Dante Hicks]

Alcoholism is still fairly serious even if it's "just" a physical dependence. I don't pretend to understand the difference however.

[Deepflow]

alchoholism is also psychological in nearly all cases

as are all physical addictions.

[Deciduous]

"Anyone can and will become physically dependent upon sedative-hypnotic drugs under the right circumstances of dose, duration and discontinuation. Only a small minority of psychologically and physiologically predisposed individuals will become addicted in the sense just described. Physical dependence is easily dealt with by a gradual reduction of dosage which avoids withdrawal symptoms; "

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Deciduous

"Anyone can and will"

At this point the sentence lost coherency.

[Deepflow]

Originally Posted by Deciduous

"Anyone can and will become physically dependent upon sedative-hypnotic drugs under the right circumstances of dose, duration and discontinuation. Only a small minority of psychologically and physiologically predisposed individuals will become addicted in the sense just described. Physical dependence is easily dealt with by a gradual reduction of dosage which avoids withdrawal symptoms; "

in practice its rarely that simple...

and i really cant be arsed to explain why.

[Dante Hicks]

What the hell does any of this matter? We all agree it's possible to have some level of dependence (or addiction, whatever) on alcohol/cigarettes as well as illegal drugs.

[Deciduous]

I'm saying that the dependence on alcohol is different to that of drugs like heroin. It is hard to escape from that addiction, tobacco is the same and should be illegal in my opinion.
Saying it doesnt matter is like saying that every crime should have a fixed 5 year prison sentence.

Oh it is that simple Deepflow, but i cant be arsed to explain why

[Leshy]

The use of drugs, much like prostitution, is a victimless crime. I believe waging a War on Drugs is a waste of money, time and resources which could be far better spent in solving crimes that do have victims, or by running Drug Awareness programs in schools, in order to inform people about drugs and their effects.

The Netherlands has a fairly relaxed policy towards the use of soft-drugs, and other than some junks begging around the largest train stations, we have fairly little problems with domestical drug abuse. As for harddrugs, the only reason it causes criminal behaviour, is because of it's price. Were it legally sold in stores at the price of a package of cigarettes, addicted people wouldn't have to be stealing and selling themselves in order to pay for their fix.

[Deciduous]

So having people who are psychologically dependent on a drug to the point where they have mind numbing cravings at work is ok? maybe they can just shoot up at the desk if it gets too bad.

[Leshy]

To be honest, I don't see how that's really different from people taking a cigarette break at work, something which is common practice and socially accepted in today's world.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Deciduous

So having people who are psychologically dependent on a drug to the point where they have mind numbing cravings at work is ok? maybe they can just shoot up at the desk if it gets too bad.

Well, society seems to do OK with cigarette breaks...

But anyway YES YES a thousand times YES. People can **** up their lives if they want. If their work suffers, they will be fired for breech of contract. This is called personal responsibility.

Obviously I don't want people to be addicted to drugs, much like I don't want people to be Roman Catholics. I don't want either banned though.

edit : Lousy Dutchmen!

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

But anyway YES YES a thousand times YES. People can **** up their lives if they want. If their work suffers, they will be fired for breech of contract. This is called personal responsibility.

If only we had this attitude with health care, retirement, education, unemployment, etc.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

If only we had this attitude with health care, retirement, education, unemployment, etc.

I'd be happy for more personal responsibility in all those fields. I'm just happy to help people out once they've messed up. I merely recognise not everyone is willing to do this.

[Deepflow]

Originally Posted by Deciduous

I'm saying that the dependence on alcohol is different to that of drugs like heroin. It is hard to escape from that addiction, tobacco is the same and should be illegal in my opinion.
Saying it doesnt matter is like saying that every crime should have a fixed 5 year prison sentence.

Oh it is that simple Deepflow, but i cant be arsed to explain why

you seem to not be realising that alchohol is physically AND psychologically addictive therefore you have to deal with the physical problem of addiction on top of the normal psychological problem.

aaanyway...

people taking lower doses and lower doses WILL withdraw physically from the drug... but they will still have the psychological addiction to contend with and will quite possibly "use on top" of the prescription drugs... and if they continue to reduce the prescription drugs will normally use on top more to combat the increasing withdrawal they are feeling. Also, even if you CAN get people to become physically and psychologically independent from the drug they still go back into the same environment which caused them to take the drug in the first place in roughly 90% of cases and often relapse as they have nothing else to do. Same friends, same background. Even rehab centres in the country only keep people for a certain amount of time (about a year) before they go back to the same area and situation that their substance abuse problem started in anyway.

is that any better? does it explain why it isnt quite so simple as "reducing the amount till they just have no craving in their system and jump away to become happy and wonderful members of society contributing their taxes buying their dream home finding their dream partner and having 2.4 children".

if you still dont understand deciduous, you can **** off.

[queball]

UK drug laws are better than most. Raising the prices lowers consumption. Whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages is a different question, of course.

[Deciduous]

Heroin addicts are primarily psychology addicted, while physical dependency can occur later due to the body building a tolerance of it.
Sedative drugs, particularly alcohol rarely have that level of dependency.
The kind of background these people return to after cleaning up is not the issue.

Dearest Dante,
A lot of people who become addicted to heroin are no longer in control of their lives.
The best way to prevent it happening is to not start in the first place.
It's easy enough to say "well it's their choice to make", but I doubt that many people fully appreciate the consequences before they start.

[Baron Morte]

Originally Posted by Ivana

isn't that just because the people dealing are willing to break the law?

law is an arbitrary term that most people agree with.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by queball

UK drug laws are better than most. Raising the prices lowers consumption.

This is implying that drug use is automatically bad which seems to be starting from a fairly unsupported position.

It's like saying "Well, having racist laws would cut the amount of mixed-race marriages." Probably yes, but I don't see why this would be a good thing.

[Deepflow]

Originally Posted by Deciduous

Heroin addicts are primarily psychology addicted, while physical dependency can occur later due to the body building a tolerance of it.
Sedative drugs, particularly alcohol rarely have that level of dependency.
The kind of background these people return to after cleaning up is not the issue.

alchohol rarely has that level of dependency... heroin also rarely has that level of dependency. Despite popular belief, there are a greater number of people involved in a recreational use of heroin than the amount who are dependent on it. As is the case with alchohol. Alchoholics are no more in control of their lives than junkies are. The main differences are that alchohol is more readily available, and more socially acceptable. Also, it is far far cheaper to be an alchoholic than a junkie. Leading to crime from those who are addicted from it in order to continue their habit. An alchoholic can easily get enough alchohol to last a week with about 30 quid, of course it depends on their size and tolerance levels, but white star at 50p a can is a very very cheap way of putting alchohol into your system.

The main differences between alchoholism and heroin addiction are the price, the social acceptability, and the fact that alchol damages your body in the long term, whereas heroin doesnt.

and i think the background they return to IS the issue where it causes relapse, as that does completely defeat the point of cleaning up in the first place. However hard or easy that may have been.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

To save time, can we just all pretend someone has said "wot, like ciggies, lol!" and you've tried to establish some spurious difference between alcohol/tobacco & cannabis/ecstacy?

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

And heroin being illegal clearly sucks. Apart from a whole price issue, there's no reasonable certainty of quality which means people randomly dying from a bad dose here and now. It also leads things like overdoses to be proportionaly more likely.

One of the biggest problems is shared needles, too. However, I don't think that having the drug freely (and more cheaply) available will help in reducing overdoses, personally.

The only drug with a lack of a significant danger is cannabis, and I'm prolegalisation of that. However, I'm procriminilisation of tobacco.