"Legalise all drugs"

[Steel_Tomb]

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:ok the mad mulla of the traffic taleban (Richard Brunstrom) has officially lost his mind. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20071011/tuk-legalise-all-drugs-police-chief-6323e80_2.html

Hes currently under investigation for showing pictures of a decapitated motorcyclist in a anti-speeding campaign WITHOUT getting permission from the family. Hes got a history of rediculous and controversial proposals. Now he wants drugs to be legalised??? Madness!

...or is it just a cover so he can go smoke :|\\ without fear of prosicution lol...for some of the stuff he comes up with it wouldn't surprise me if he was a crack head! :rotfl:

[jumpy]

I have to agree...












...that the current system of prohibition has failed on all fronts to prevent, curtail or otherwise hinder the use, trafficking and sale of drugs.
Rather than burying our heads in the sand going 'lalalalalalalala drugs are illegal and bad mmmkay?' and refusing to try anything new to solve the problem, we ought to consider ideas that, whilst might not show up very well for a politicians reputation as a squeaky clean self promoting weathervane, may provide an avenue of progress to reduce the consumption of these substances.

At the very least the seriously addictive drugs like heroin would fall under the supervision of medical staff and remove the criminal element both selling and committing crime to fund a life of endless addiction.

Anything has got to be better than the current mess we are in which is so far away from helping the issue.

[Steel_Tomb]

Well if you think about it a majority of drugs have to be imported. If we had tighter customs laws and monitored our boarders more effectively, there would be less of a problem. There are alternatives to get people off drugs too like methadone etc. By legalising drugs it would make it harder to get people off them. You couldn't touch dealers because they would then say "whats the problem, its legal!"
I personally think such a move would be a big step back. Yes, perhaps a review of the law is needed, but to legalise all drugs is pure insanity! It hardly sends out the message of "don't do drugs" to younger people like myself...more like "go ahead, we don't care, you won't get in trouble for it!"

[Letum]

I think everyone should have as much freedom as they can up until a point where they
a nuisance or a hazard to other peoples property, freedoms, person or rights.

Now, you could take drugs without causing a nuisance or a hazard to other peoples
property, freedoms, person or rights. However, for most drugs, more often than not,
this is not the case.

Therefore I think they should remain illegal; which is a shame.

[Steel_Tomb]

The other problem, is while the may not be an immidiate threat to others, the damage they will suffer in terms of mental illnesses from drugs costs the NHS money, money which at the moment is desperately needed.

[Letum]

The other problem, is while the may not be an immidiate threat to others, the damage they will suffer in terms of mental illnesses from drugs costs the NHS money, money which at the moment is desperately needed.

Well, I think the NHS should be able to claim money or refuse treatment to people who
cause them selves injury or illness whist being in sound mind.

[jumpy]

Putting a smackhead in prison because they committed theft to fund a habit they cannot break is not helping them to quit. Removing dealers from the equation removes the need for the junkie to steal to furnish his habit and having the drugs in a controlled environment where purity can be assessed, preventing deaths from overdose etc means the chances of doctors being able to wean users off their addiction are significantly improved.
As an example I think it'd work rather well. Trouble is it first requires admission that the current system helps no-one. Bring on the finger pointing and blame game politicians.

For many years I have had a job and responsibility whilst at the same time enjoying the occasional tipple of various things. For those that can behave in a reasonable manner, being labelled a criminal because I favour one activity over going into town on a friday or saturday night, drinking a skin-full then having a fight, seems to me to be part of the root of the problem. Like prostitution, drugs are a social taboo (despite the fact that just about everybody uses them) that we sweep under the carpet rather than facing up to the truth. People like to get high; since the dawn of civilisation man has searched for ways to get off his face for any number of social, cultural or religious reasons. Modern drug use differs very little in this respect. All that has changed is our perception of it.

I don't believe drugs ought to be 'freely available to the public'. In the case of heroin the priority must be netting existing users and usurping their street supply with properly controlled distribution centres. In the case of other lesser class substances, possession ought not to be a criminal offence if there is no indication of intent to supply. The current hypocrisy where the government taxes two quite dangerous and insidious drugs whilst in the same breath declaring everyone else who uses substances that (in essence) are not currently taxable is what I consider to be criminal. Things are changing with that last one, but very slowly.

As far as health issues and the money to treat them is concerned, we hardly suffer from a pandemic of mental illness or disease as a direct result of the consumption of drugs. A better argument for the correct spending of money on our NHS could be satisfied in the following manner:

"Chuck another couple of hospitals on the fire"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml;jsessionid=JDR1CYP4SLJWZQFIQMFCFF4AVCBQ YIV0?xml=/sport/2007/10/11/sofron111.xml
Construction of these modern day folly's differs nought from the past where rich lords would have a building constructed for the sake of displaying their wealth- look how much cash I can waste on something with no purpose! Except for the fact that they are spending taxpayers money to do this.

Prestigious event? Yes. A complete waste of money that could be better allocated elsewhere? Damn right.

The same applies to the allocation of billions of pounds to developing nations that stubbornly refuse to stay developed. Look after and secure the welfare of your own addicts, homeless people and poor first then you can start thinking about your debt to relieving other nations who require help. That's only common sense. 'Meet the Natives' on UK tv the other week illustrated this very well when the 'primitive' tribesmen came to see the wonders of modern society and were astounded and shocked that we have people living rough on the streets in the midst of so much splendour and affluence. How can this be? they asked incredulously . How indeed.

I pay national insurance an lead a moderate lifestyle, so any injury I sustain as a result of my occasional indulgence I have already paid for, that thus far most of nhs spending seems to go to managers, useless computer systems and treatment of those who contribute nothing in return is what I object to.

The whole system of control of drugs needs to be changed and managed by people who actually live in the real world, not some guy in a wig at the top of an ivory tower, who most likely enjoys a line of coke as much as the next guy. :roll:
And it's that last that puts the whole situation into horrible perspective for me.

[bookworm_020]

Ask the people who have to dael with theose on the drug ICE (police, medical wokers) and see if they want open season on drugs! I think not!:nope:

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/186_07_020407/ful11359_fm.html

http://www.salvos.org.au/need-help/the-facts/ice.php

[P_Funk]

Ask the people who have to dael with theose on the drug ICE (police, medical wokers) and see if they want open season on drugs! I think not!:nope:

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/186_07_020407/ful11359_fm.html

http://www.salvos.org.au/need-help/the-facts/ice.php We just did, and he said we should legalize them (enter topic post article). You ask a lefty if he thinks drugs should be legal... he's crazy. Ask a cop if they should be legal... he says they should... he's one in a million and crazy... as the millions of status quo sluts that haven't got any imagination and they support the existing system that is only promoting drug trafficing.

The good old fashiopned appeal to authority is meaningless and of course is conveniently changed when someone who is of the preferred authority pipes up out of line with whats expected.

Well if you think about it a majority of drugs have to be imported. If we had tighter customs laws and monitored our boarders more effectively, there would be less of a problem. Yea... sure... Israel has problems with Palestinians getting guns from outsides sources... they lock down the borders, sea ports, and airports tighter than the pope's voting record and STILL enough weapons get in for Israel to justify continued KABOOMing of the general area. Gaza is petite compared to any border in the Western world, especially a european one given the advent of the EU, same for Canada-US in how they want NAFTA to become a means to dissolve all borders.

So attacking the symptom as is often the like of silly nits is totally ineffective and of course proven so. The symptom is the abuse, and the cause is different. I don't pretend to have a hard and fast solution or a PHD to tell you why everyone who dopes does, but I know its not because of opportunity. Trials with legalization and government controlled drug sources have proven that not only does legalization point towards lower instances of crime but also it causes the junkie to reconsider his situation much more often. Think about it, if you had to walk into a government office everyday to get your fix and while you sat in the waiting room you had all those lovely posters in front of you and you saw this person everyday that said "I'll help you if you want" maybe its better than sitting in a crackhouse all day buzzing then coming down, then being cold and crazy and then stealing some stuff to pay for your next fix.

The logic cited above however is cleanly ignored as utopian or insane or naiive or whatever. All I know is that statistics prove that the drug war does nothing but make drug dealers rich by making the market value of a drug too high to not be worth selling. Preventing trafficking is only possible as a preventative action. Once the drugs hit the streets you can't help but get 1% of them if you're lucky. Borderds will always be too porous to prevent them entering the countries and the only way to get it all or most of it would be to search every car truck airplane and freight package and that would destroy the economy so that we'd worry about bigger things than little Sue's bad ass boyfriend getting her hooked on Ice.

Thats the gospel of crazy-lefty as I see it.

[CptSimFreak]

Which country legalized marijuana and has no problem with 'drug' crime? Hmmm....they must be wrong. Let's preemptively invade them on behalf of 'moral-religious' grounds. :damn:


Government will take any possible router to make most stupidest law which it will not able to enforce.

[Skybird]

Having come around a bit amongst hospital staff, escpecially clinical therapists, psychologists and doctors, I must say I still wait for the first person from these groups who would not frown when mentioning the possibility of legalizing heavy drugs in general. As my professor in psychopathology once put it, long years ago: "Why I am against legalising heroin for crime-related reasons only? For the same reason why I am against recommending people to inhale their car's emissions, or consume arsenic." Yes, I know there are projects experimenting with state-controlled distribution of heavy drugs, or surrogates. I also know the link between drug consummation and drug-related crime. But legalizing drugs because of that? No. At best strictly controlled projects where junkies sign in, accepting to be controlled and to be under strict surveillance, and then being assisted in de-contamination, resocialising - with a positive social prognosis as a precondition for being allowed into such a project. The unfortunate truth (that I expect many not to like to hear) is that there are many cases were all hope simply is lost. Such a project also (necessarily) means obligatory most fundamental changes in social settings, cutting of friendships, and drastic changes in living environments, to brake all contact to the former scene the junkie had known. This is most essential, since else the probability is extremely high his former "friends" will bring him down again.If needing to estimate a general value how many can be helped this way, how many really have a realistic chnace, remembering some experiences and talks from the past: at best one in five, I was told by the practicing staff - at best.Drugs destroy, killing families, body, and soul - slowly. Legalizing them in general for whatever well-meant reasons or crime-related considerations can in no way be ethically justified.

[P_Funk]

There is of course the assumption that legalizing drugs will compel people to use them more or that it will make the problems for users worse. If anything the impact of drug use will be less harsh on people since the relative cost of the drugs will be down from the absurd inflated cost of prohibition, and also it will help reduce the stigma attached to it which barres much of our own perception from accepting new ideas. Lastly how many young people try taboo things for the very reason they are taboo? Sure some people seek them out but making it taboo is a sure fire way to draw in people directly who are looking for that kind of thing. At the very least criminalized drugs are absurd. Half the connections I criminal will make for his life of crime come from prison. Many people pick up drug habits in jail. The concept of a criminalization of drugs is the first stage of the problem. At the very least thats where people can start to maybe meet in common ground for discussing where next it could go.

[bookworm_020]

If you legalize all drugs will here be safe dosage limits? Will you pick them up from the supermarket? Will you be able to claim them back on your tax???

The reason that these drugs are banned is due to the unsafe side effects and addictive pattens that can evolve from there use. Some these issues will only show years later.

Some may say pot is not all that harmless, but where does it lead? (If you can remember!). I have seen what an addiction can do to a person from a first person view point. The Drug problem isn't just a crime issue, a social issue, or a health issue, it's all three.

May I suggest that Richard Brunstrom be drug tested? It might show what he's on so he can get some treatment!!:doh:

[kiwi_2005]

Ban Tobbaco!

[Iceman]

Mark 7
[15] There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.
[16] If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.
[17] And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.
[18] And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;
[19] Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?
[20] And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.
[21] For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
[22] Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
[23] All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.


People need to take responsability for they're own actions and not try to blame a thing....All things on this Earth were put here for man to use and partake of...save one....to snub the nose up at things because "man" says so is foolish...yet at the same time it is man that can still throw you into jail for not obeying the current law of the land.

The golden rule is Love....love worketh no ill and if thy brother is offended by thou eating meat or partaking of a thing, it becomes sin to you to cause offense for him.

If thou eatest meat thou doest good but not at the price of the little ones.

Faith is the key.

[RedMenace]

Mark 7
[15] There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.
[16] If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.
[17] And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.
[18] And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;
[19] Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?
[20] And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.
[21] For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
[22] Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
[23] All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.


People need to take responsability for they're own actions and not try to blame a thing....All things on this Earth were put here for man to use and partake of...save one....to snub the nose up at things because "man" says so is foolish...yet at the same time it is man that can still throw you into jail for not obeying the current law of the land.

The golden rule is Love....love worketh no ill and if thy brother is offended by thou eating meat or partaking of a thing, it becomes sin to you to cause offense for him.

If thou eatest meat thou doest good but not at the price of the little ones.

Faith is the key.
Let me be the first to say... what? :-?

And anyway, yeah, this War on Drugs thing isn't working. The price of heroin has gone down by around 600% since the 1970's. Obviously something's not working.

It's also stupid to put drug users in jail. You can't put a herion junkie in jail for being a herion junkie. Why? Because he's just gonna come out of prison the same way he came in: a heroin junkie.

It's ALSO stupid to be so hypocritical on some drugs and not others. Alcohol and tobacco, both mind-altering, addictive, and physically crippling, is both legal and socially acceptable, if not the norm, while marijuana is still illegal in the majority of western nations, despite it being non-addictive and relatively harmless.

If you want to take down drugs, you got to legalize them, and control them. Doing drugs doesn't make you a criminal, but by criminalizing something that isn't a crime, you still make real criminals. You create drug dealers, drug lords, and a helluva lot of gang violence.

Just something to think about.

[P_Funk]

Some may say pot is not all that harmless, but where does it lead?
The gatway theory is BS. Why would marijuana lead to harder drug use if it has many of the same characteristics of cigarettes while nobody claims that they're anything more than bad for your longterm health?

If you say then that because Marijuana is in the same boat as the harder drugs and so you meet the others by doing this one then theres no reason not to remove this one from the same category as the harder drugs.

None of the logic for keeping weed illegal makes any sense. If someone uses a harder drug than booze or weed then they 'need' it, and not because weed compelled them to. Most drug use is a social issue. People don't do drugs cause the evil drug captured their mind. Why does someone WANT to do heroine? Numb some kind of pain? The psychological reasons for drug abuse have little to nothing to do with the cultural taboo surrounding them. Booze is abused far more than any illegal narcotic and for the same reasons.

Weed is probably the safest drug you can do compared to half the stuff taht your doctor tells you to take. Think about it, prescription drugs for depression... B-dup on the corner gives you some china white cause your life sucks... whats the real difference there, other than one has a Washington lobby and the other doesn't?

[TteFAboB]

You guys ever heard of illegal and fake cigarrettes? http://www.cancer.org/downloads/AA/TobaccoAtlas17.pdf; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4096911.stm

Legalising drugs wouldn't get rid of the black-market, but provide traffickers and smugglers with a secondary source of income. The market would be quickly divided between criminals and the pharmaceutical industry.

There are two kinds of drug users: the addict and the recreational (or occasional). The first needs help, the second just needs to switch to pharmaceuticals so that he doesn't finance crime.

Then, in the case of Europe and the UK, we just sit and wait for Islam to clean the land of drug addicts by implanting its superior culture: http://www.inter-islam.org/Prohibitions/drugs.htm

[Skybird]

Ban Tobbaco!
Meanwhile, in Belmont, Cal.

http://media.www.theargonaut.net/media/storage/paper823/news/2007/09/27/News/Belmonts.Smoking.Ban.Goes.Into.Effect.In.Just.30.D ays-2993567.shtml
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_7135197?source=most_emailed
http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article1255283/Stadt_verbietet_das_Rauchen_in_Wohnungen.html

The addict, for him it does not play a role if he suffers from legal or illegal drugs - he still is suffering.

If today's known drugs become legalized, new, heavier fruits of sin will be invented, and be traded on the black market. there will always be a black market for illegal drugs. Wanting to prevent that is like wanting to prohibit prostitution.

Legalizing drugs leads to more people having access to them easily. even people who else would never have become in touch with them. In the end, you end up with even higher umbers of addicts. Great.

I share my prof's view of that legalizing drugs compares to legally recommending suicide to healthy people. It simply is idiotic, and remains unexcusable from an ethical perspective.

as I said: controlled projects for junkeys wanting to get off the trip, wehre they are helped out of the criminal scene by allowing them access to state-controlled drugs, combined with obligations, therapeutical measures, and such.

Alcohol is pefectly legal in all Wetsern nations. Now tell me: is the number of people falling victim to it increasing or decreasing? I give you the ansewr: we have more kids and juveniles drinking themselves into coma, and we have more juveniles rgularly consuming alamring levels of alcohol, and we have more teenage alcoholics than ever before. The level of adult alcoholics is at least not declining.

Drug abuse due to job-related stress is a massive problem in many typical jobs: medical staff and doctors, managers. They will not stop consuming drugs because they are legalized. Rather the opposite.

That should decide the argument of legalizing drugs once and for all. I can't believe that people could be so stupid to defend this idea. It is abstract, unrealistic conceptions being drawn in the safety of some 1968-accelerated super-pedagogue's bureau, frontally colliding with non-cooperating harsh reality at maximum speed.

[TarJak]

Given that the two drugs that are associated with the deaths of more people in the Western world are both legal I would say that legalising does little to reduce the harm caused by drugs.

That said I also disagree with the current approach which is one of the most wasteful and corruptable positions to take. Making drugs legal or illegal has been proven to do little to stem use or abuse. Regardless of the laws people will try to make money out of other people's addictions and those that are addicted will do what they can to feed that addition. This is so with tobacco and alcohol as it is with all additcive drugs.

As Andrew Denton often said "People are the problem."

[Skybird]

As Andrew Denton often said "People are the problem."
Tell that to psychologist, pedagogues, social scientists, and other endlessly wellmeaning "Menschenbewegte"! :lol: So many of them consider themselves to be omnipotent and blessed with God-like powers, any every man on earth only is a question of the right tool or technique to make him hop in the sociologic correct manner. Never missed it since I turned my back on it, never will miss it.

[kiwi_2005]

Legalise drugs - No.
Adding Tobbacco to the illegal list - Yes

[Uber Gruber]

Have to disagree with the "Adding Tabacco" to the illegal list i'm afraid. That said, i'd happily add cigarettes to the list.

In Norway and Sweden there are many users of Snus, this is a similar to something that exists in the states but the manufacturing process is a little more "user" friendly. Both countries have one of the lowest rates of lung cancer, especially amongst men. Furthermore, nicotine addictin is a real problem and as such we should be trying tohelp people give up cigarettes and ultimately nicotine too. Snus is very helpfull in helping people give up the fags as it satisfies their nicotine addiction during. Much akin to nicotine chewing gum, Snus releases nicotine via a tobacco pouch placed under the lip and against the gum. The World Health Organistation investigated Snus and concluded it as possibly increasing the risk of neck, gum and mouth cancer amongst "heavy" users but also concluded it helped those addicted to ciagrettes to kick the habit.

We can ban things, but that does not solve the problem.....remember prohibition ?

[Tchocky]

Weed is probably the safest drug you can do compared to half the stuff taht your doctor tells you to take. Think about it, prescription drugs for depression... B-dup on the corner gives you some china white cause your life sucks... whats the real difference there, other than one has a Washington lobby and the other doesn't?

Double Blind testing :D

[STEED]

Sure you can take drugs as long as you pay for your own medical treatment as there is no point locking them up as our prisons there junkie Paradise.

[kiwi_2005]

Have to disagree with the "Adding Tabacco" to the illegal list i'm afraid. That said, i'd happily add cigarettes to the list.

In Norway and Sweden there are many users of Snus, this is a similar to something that exists in the states but the manufacturing process is a little more "user" friendly. Both countries have one of the lowest rates of lung cancer, especially amongst men. Furthermore, nicotine addictin is a real problem and as such we should be trying tohelp people give up cigarettes and ultimately nicotine too. Snus is very helpfull in helping people give up the fags as it satisfies their nicotine addiction during. Much akin to nicotine chewing gum, Snus releases nicotine via a tobacco pouch placed under the lip and against the gum. The World Health Organistation investigated Snus and concluded it as possibly increasing the risk of neck, gum and mouth cancer amongst "heavy" users but also concluded it helped those addicted to ciagrettes to kick the habit.

We can ban things, but that does not solve the problem.....remember prohibition ?
I should of said ciggarettes to avoid confusion, I was a 'roll your own' tobbacco user so to me tobbacco, ciggarettes same thing. A smoker for 20+ years, its a very nasty habit, and like heroin once you have your first hit your hooked (for most) the more you take it the more you become dependent on it. Thing is ciggarettes doesn't make you high like most drugs nor drunk like alcohol so banning it would not get young ppl to go out and buy it underground. Why do most try cannibis cause its the thrill of getting high, why do they head out to the pubs on a friday night cause its the thrill of getting drunk. So imagine cigarettes being sold underground here have this its only $20 a bag, oh will this give me a buzz, no it will do nothing to you apart from becoming dependant on it for the rest of your life. No thanks thats for striaght ppl. I need to get high tonight. :roll: The pushers will go broke :lol:

Not only that but what really gets to me is tobbacco companies are making huge profits to a drug that kills you. And all they do is control the use of ciggerettes in public places etc., Just bann it from the planet! Oh wait the govenment gets huge taxes from tobbacco. They to are drug dealers.

[Fish]

Which country legalized marijuana and has no problem with 'drug' crime? Hmmm....they must be wrong. Let's preemptively invade them on behalf of 'moral-religious' grounds. :damn:


Government will take any possible router to make most stupidest law which it will not able to enforce.

My country. :know:

And we are already invaded,.... by americans. :smug:

[Sailor Steve]

Legalise drugs - No.
Adding Tobbacco to the illegal list - Yes
And alcohol!

No, wait...they tried that already, and it didn't work either.