Should drugs be legalised?

[sharny]

mephedrone is cool.

[Guest Anonymous]

There has been yet another drug advisor quit over this mephadrone dabacle. The decision to ban it was a political one not a medical/ scientific one. I know many people who have been using it safely for about the past year with no ill effects. Those deaths everyone has been hearing about were caused mostly by idiots mixing things like methadone and alcohol (a Known fatal mixture) and because they had also taken mephadrone it somehow became the cause. The real reason it's being demonised is quite simply... It was a slow news day.

so its a bit of an intelligence test? n them that fails, fails big time? ah well

[xoni]

a substance with an almost identical chemical compond as crystal meth is cool? http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/index.html . Oh helll yeah so cool

 

Drugs education in schools needs looking at and by someone other than the police who are automatically seen as the enemy/kill joys by kids prone to experimenting. Truly believe that giving someone the real facts ...that means the good side not just the bad side..both.. would encourage wiser decisions.

[Clean your Soap]

a substance with an almost identical chemical compond as crystal meth is cool? http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/index.html . Oh helll yeah so cool

 

 

To put this in perspective chemically crystal meth is also nearly identical to ephedrine, otherwise known as sudafed which you can buy over the counter at the chemist.

[Guest Anonymous]

the countrys/public opinion needs to change n thats very unlikely, an attitude seems to have crept in that deviance is just great, lying,stealing,buckfast,lambrini,residential homes,drugs etc etc is right,great n cool, wow, great britain

[Njugle]

Lerrick, for example, was razed to the ground in the 17th century for similar reasons, perhaps less drugs though, more drink, prostitution and debauchery. Time moves on but people remain the same, generally. They just have more access to things, illegal or otherwise.

[xoni]

To put this in perspective chemically crystal meth is also nearly identical to ephedrine, otherwise known as sudafed which you can buy over the counter at the chemist.

 

sure it is if you cook it up and mix it with specific quantities of some toxic household chemicals at he correct tempreture and for long enough, if you then get all that right ( without blowing up yopur house ) then you have some crystal meth...on the other hand you can get menthadrone which is conveniantly made for you and comes in a handy bag.

[Gibber]

Fact of the matter is its dangerous , really dangerous and legalising anything thats dangerous is a bizzare notion in my eyes just to stop it falling into the hands of criminals..so by that logic we should legalise guns too?

 

And by your logic criminalise car use?

[Ghostrider]

Fact of the matter is its dangerous , really dangerous and legalising anything thats dangerous is a bizzare notion in my eyes just to stop it falling into the hands of criminals..so by that logic we should legalise guns too?

 

I think you're largely missing the point. There's a whole list of substances which are arguably no more harmful (some possibly less) than alcohol and tobacco, which are currently deemed "illegal".

 

If you legalise those and make them available at a reasonable price, but in a manner in which those who are vulnerable are largely protected from the negativities of them. Something along the lines, but an improved version of, the current alcohol and tobacco supply models, you immediately virtually destroy the black market.

 

How many folk in Shetland in 2010 have a still in the barn or garage, how many folk are actively smuggling in alcohol and tobacco to the place? Damn few, yet it wasn't always that way. While there may be one or two at it, and I really wouldn't know if there are or not, the only reason for it is the government being too greedy and hiking the duty of alcohol and tobacco to the point some are baulking at the price.

 

You are never going to stop the serial "experimenters" nor are you going to stop the "forbidden fruit" junkies, they get their kicks by going that extra mile as much as they get them from whatever substance they're trying at the time. However, if the substances which are arguably no more harmful than alcohol and tobacco were as readily and legally available as alcohol and tobacco are, and at a realistic cost, the vast majority of users will opt for that choice.

 

Remove from the market those users who would be quite happy to settle for a reasonably priced legal joint or whatever, and you have removed a significant percentage of your professional dealer's customer base, and in doing so have removed a proportionate amount of their power, wealth and influence.

 

Professional dealers right now are monopolys, or cartels, they set the price, control the supply, and rule the roost. If nothing else, legal outlets, providing they government let them, set prices belows professional dealers, they will break that monopoly situation. In fact, the government, if they so chose, could let those legal outlets sell at cost for a while and subsidise them enough to mak eit worth their bother, I would be surprised if that subsidy wasn't cheaper than the total cost borne by taxpayers right now via the NHS, Police, Courts, Prisons etc in fighting an already lost battle, that those in charge should have had enough sense to see should never have been begun.

 

Professional dealers cannot afford to sell at cost to compete, and there would be no point in doing so, and most would see no point in continuing if in undercutting the legal price their own profits were cut to the bone. Opening out a nationwide legalised marketplace for the "least harm" substances would decimate the professional dealer's market share, it would not really be worth their bother to develop "new" highs to release on to the market as they are doing now, in fact I would doubt if most would bother trying, they'd be on their way to whatever other activity they had their eye on that they believed would make them money.

 

Moonshiners and smugglers are these days relatively rare breeds, yet in the past they have been plentiful, the only reason a few hang in is due to the high levels of tax a greedy government levy on the legally available products. Prohibition failed as the substance prohibited was far too easily created and there was far too big a demand for it to make a blanket ban enforcable without draconain civil liberty restrictions and massive cost. There are now several other, currently illegal substances for which the same argument applies, and in time that legalisation will happen. We just must go through this period that we are in now, where there are two polar opposite camps ban/legalise, in exactly the same way as alcohol did, and in exactly the same way as there were casualties from exploding stills and "bad" batches of moonshine, there are casualties from mishaps of folk making their own and from "bad" batches. Unfortunately that's how the human animal works en masse, it takes a few generations and collateral damage for the majority to accept and put reasonably adequate controlling mechanisims in place for what has already happened.

[Baron Farkoff]

Mephedrone isn't cool. It is if you like the sensation of a urinary tract infection combined with a headache (allegedly). The gangsters are laughing at the people who take it. A much better idea would be to use it as a plant food, and grow some,er, delicious tomatoes.

Xoni, I have a real sympathy with you and your 15 yr old.

I know a 14 yr old who knows next to nothing about drugs, and the current debacle regarding this rubbish drug is not going to do her education any good.

What are the facts coming her way? That Mephedrone is being sold a a substitute for cocaine.That was on the news. Thanks for that, Home secratary, you flaming numpty. What is cocaine?-she will ask herself. I really hope she doesn't find an answer to that one before doing her GCSEs,but since they seem indistinguishable in a packet and one is legal, what do you reckon?Cheers.

Another fact, framed on the news by a shot of people dancing at a "rave" or something,was that it produces "side effects" like hallucinations, dizzyness, and makes you feel good whilst wanting more. What the report fails to mention is that it turns people who once were funny, witty, and actually there in the room with you into farking morons who can't even string a coherent sentence together,let alone actually do anything creative. At least Fleetwood Mac made "Rumours" while high, I reckon on M-cat they would have had a job making a cup of tea.

I despair, coz ther's nothing gonna stop kids trying drugs, and it seems like they are the ones being caught in the middle between the gangsters in government, who claim to know what's best for everyone without having a workable policy and the gangsters on the street who have a clear policy of being willing to sell whatever they can make available to supply the need of people who want to take drugs.

Anyone remember the scene in the young ones where Neil gets hold of some "Shetland brown"? The joke was then, and is now, that the quality of drugs up here is absolutely rubbish. That's how people die, from adulterated substances,not from having a nice toke of some decent grass. God knows what'll happen when the dealers start cutting their plant food with real plant food, or bricks,or glass. They are already mixing in their stocks of legal grass substitutes with the henna and bin bags going into the soapbar apparently.

I have heard folk say "I've got some cocaine." I have also read in the paper that the drug problem is under control. Both statements are incorrect. A friend of mine who has tried some genuine cocaine reckons the powders available up here are only good for washing ones' clothes. For all the outrage and slanted reporting up here, no-one really gives a tinkers cuss about the drug problem, as none of the people likely to be involved with drugs have much to do with what is percieved as being important here.

I am genuinely worried for the future of the kids, as the so called grownups don't know the first thing about what they are talking about.

And before anyone starts handing out Darwin award nominations, they should remember how times have changed quicker than most folk realise, and that they too were once children.

Much Love and respect to all worried parents, it's a bigger job nowadays.

[Guest Anonymous]

educated in the glorys of "highs" or not, its the culture that follows this brainless pursuit thats the real plague that pyshes me off , when were old ladies ever needing to be robbed or houses broken into ? damn scunner n there ought to be an uprising

[Baron Farkoff]

What kind of uprising do you mean, fleabee?

[Para Handy]

What kind of uprising do you mean, fleabee?

 

"old ladies"

viagra?

[Twerto]

Looks like this could turn out to be an interesting series in realtion to drugs and how current methods of prohibation are not working.

 

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/our-drugs-war

[Skunnered]

We should either:

a) legalise drugs, or

classify alcohol

because alcohol is basically drugs in liquid form, and does just as much harm to individuals and to society as drugs. If not more so.

IMHO.