Should drugs be legalised?

[JustMe]

Quote:

Fake medicines are a problem caused by the availability of the genuine article???.

 

 

Not what I meant. The problem of availability arises where the genuine article isn't available and cost effective; the counterfeit market takes over to fill the demand. My point is merely that, when provided with the legit version, people most likely go for that. Nobody is willingly going to take dangerous, counterfeit medicine. This happens as a last resort; i.e. when the cost of the legitimate, so-called 'wonder drugs' proves too expensive for them.

 

Fake medicines are a growing problem worldwide. Sure there will be fake drugs that are intended to do what the expensive branded drug does at a lower cost using the same ingredients but there are also look alike drugs that may simply be a sugar pill which have got into the regular medicines market due to criminal activity and the greed of a buyer. This is not only a third world problem.......counterfeit drugs are made and sold in the UK as well as being imported from abroad.........I seem to remember India being mentioned in this context.

[Ally]

 

Career as a barman doesn't appeal to you then?!

 

I meant in a social context, rather than being behind the bar! Besides, the barman always has the advantage, as he's in a position of power in his capacity as Keeper of the Booze.

 

Still, as most barmen/women will testify, there are many drunks out there that'll still bite the hand that feeds them.

 

So, in answer to your question... actually, yes, it kinda does appeal, but I'd rather be the proprietor of an 18th century Victorian opium den any day!

[DamnSaxon]

If you were sober in a room full of people exclusively on ecstasy they'd mainly be friendly, warm, perhaps a little too open and keen to dance. At worst they'd look a bit zombied and may be gurning away, but that's about it.

 

A room full of coke-heads would be a bit crap as they'd be loud and over the top. No worse than your average Edinburgh University student, really

 

Acid heads would be ok, although potentially quite surreal and a little disorientated.

 

Stoners could be anything from chatty to incomprehensible.

 

If folk were mainly on speed they'd just be yapping away and rather twitchy. Ironically some of the most boring people I have ever met have been on speed.

 

The booze room, however, would be awful. I love a drink, i really do, but there are few things as unsettling as a room full of drunks when you're stone cold sober.

 

Pretty much a perfect analysis, Ally. Sounds like Edinburgh's just like my own dear Nottingham.

 

I've lived opposite a popular pub, been kept awake by yelling and brawling in the street at chucking-out time, had a car written off by some drunken fool who obviously didn't see it, had them p*ssing in my garden.

 

I've also lived in a street full of assorted druggies, who might stagger about a bit now and then, or talk stoned nonsense and giggle, or wander past you with glazed eyes in a world of their own. (Actually, the last bit seems to apply to mobile phone and ipod users as well )

 

Why the first lot are "legal" and the second lot "illegal" is completely beyond me. There are people who can drink, or take practically any drug you name, and stay in control of themselves, and there are people who lose it whatever they're on. You can't legislate against human nature, and in my experience the "problems" are much more to do with that than with what a given person happens to be on at the time. Criminalise the antisocial stuff, no matter how the individual got there.

 

And as several posters have commented, buying your drugs at the chemist's or tobacconists would help take the "cool" out of it - if the chemist had to warn purchasers of the hard stuff of the risks of addiction, probably fewer of them would end up addicted as they'd be much better informed. Certainly I still know a few aging H addicts, and mostly they hold their lives together just as well as the next person. BTW, Methadone is more evil than the heroin it replaces - practically impossible to get off, apparently.

 

I tried a bit of a lot of things years ago, but the only "illegal" one I'd still accept an offer of is a spliff. The government tries to scare kids off with all their talk about pre-teens damaging their brains with "skunk" - well, who's responsible for these children? That's an argument for better parental control, not for cannabis being "dangerous" - if those kids were damaging their brains by OD'ing on nice legal whisky or vodka, would that be okay?

 

Legalise the lot. Make it so you have to sign the "poisons register" or something for the more dangerous ones. Make it uncool to be out of control on anything, and illegal to drive, etc. when wrecked on anything. And let the police get back to chasing real criminals, the ones who break into your home, or nick your car, or beat you up for whatever reason.

[ArabiaTerra]

Just a thought but...

 

One of the big problems with drug driving is the difficulty of proving that someone is on something at the time of the offence. Most tests, as far as I know, can detect if you have taken something in the past few days or weeks (6 weeks for cannabis I think). It is much more difficult to tell if someone is stoned etc right now.

 

If drugs were legalised, would it be possible to add a chemical marker that would show up in the blood/piss test so that the polis could actually get solid evidence of an offenders state at the time of the crime/accident etc?

 

Any chemists or medical people here who would like to venture an opinion?

[Para Handy]

all illegal drugs should be legal then drug problems could be treated as medical problems not criminal ones, drug users could get pure clean drugs that are not mixed with lethal chemicals and they would know the doses they were taking so less chance of over dose.

 

 

 

Just wait until somebody you Know has be killed by some moron high on drugs driving a car and then you will soon change your mind I don’t think they will be down to the jail to pat the dope on the back And before some one points out that a law can be made to make drugged driving illegal they have one for drinking driving and nobody pays a blind bit of notice to that one. Most of the people I have met who want drugs legalised are user them selves

[Evil Inky]

Just wait until somebody you Know has be killed by some moron high on drugs driving a car you will soon change your mind. And before some one points out that a law can be made to make drugged driving illegal they have one for drinking driving and nobody pays a blind bit of notice to that one.

If laws against drink and drug driving don't work, why should laws against drug-taking work ?

Most of the people I have met who want drugs legalised are user them selves

I would like to see all drugs legalised, and I don't use illegal drugs.

[Fjool]

Most of the people I have met who want drugs legalised are user them selves

 

Funny, then, how the arguments against prohibition are generally well thought out and clearly reasoned whilst the anti-drug arguments are poorly constructed, mis-typed, illogical and incoherent.

 

I'd expect it to be quite the other way around to be honest.

[Para Handy]

Most of the people I have met who want drugs legalised are user them selves

 

Funny, then, how the arguments against prohibition are generally well thought out and clearly reasoned whilst the anti-drug arguments are poorly constructed, mis-typed, illogical and incoherent.

 

Funny, then, how the arguments against prohibition are generally well thought out and clearly reasoned whilst the anti-drug arguments are poorly constructed, mis-typed, illogical and incoherent.

 

With a user name like yours one cant but wonder what your on

[Ghostrider]

Most of the people I have met who want drugs legalised are user them selves

 

Funny, then, how the arguments against prohibition are generally well thought out and clearly reasoned whilst the anti-drug arguments are poorly constructed, mis-typed, illogical and incoherent.

 

Funny, then, how the arguments against prohibition are generally well thought out and clearly reasoned whilst the anti-drug arguments are poorly constructed, mis-typed, illogical and incoherent.

 

With a user name like yours one cant but wonder what your on

 

Pots and kettles....glasshouses and stones....

[Guest Anonymous]

you have to remember, and i have said this before drug's are constantly available and by that i mean canabis, speed , ecstasy , cocaine and heroin through the black market here in shetland. Also constantly available through the national health service for all those who go and plead that they have either - a drug problem or a mental proble are methadone , valium , dihydracodiene , benzadrine and a whole range of other sedatives and uppers i woudn't know the name of.

the first group of drugs i mentioned that are available via the black market has been sold steadily for years now here in shetland and the police and there sniffer dogs , although having made at times substantial hauls of these drugs , they have rarely made any impact on supply , the only thing they may have disrupted for a bit was probably the supply of canabis , probably due to the fact it is the bulkiest to smuggle in any quantity . Ironically this is probably the least harmful of the substances.

 

the second group of drugs well the sniffer dog never goes near the health centre and all us honest taxpayers foot the bill for there supply to the hoards of numpties that get them.

Another bitter irony is that of the young men who have died of drugs in shetland , most of them have been killed by substances handed out from the health centre -- FACT.

SO all legal or all illegal , well even if you made all drugs legal , people would still die occasionally and there would still be a black market where freelancing entrepeunuers would try to make a buck by undercutting the price the government offered them for , that I am afraid is the nature of the beast.

AT the end of the day I think holland's approach is bang on , the government makes a lot of money out of canabis and magic mushrooms and the associated paraphanalia and saves at the same time on the policing , and a hell of a lot of the money they make filters out of the british economy from the vast hoards of stoners who make there way there to enjoy there laws!

At the same time hard drugs remain illegal but the abuse of has fallen due to the police having more time to direct there resources at this problem.

So it is just a simple case of saying should the country continue to lose vast amounts of money on this problem or does it start to make money on this problem , thats the way i see it

[Sudden Stop]

It seem as if some people writting here see drug user/addicts as complete nutters with no self respect or restraint who just bumble around taking what ever drugs they see in front of them. Please join the real world.

 

Drug user/addicts ARE nutters. No question, no doubt, absolutely, 100% are nutters (i can think of betters names for them however). Anybody that thinks otherwise - i.e. they can abuse illegal (and they are illegal for a reason) sustances, abuse their bodies, engage in illegal activities to fund addiction and generally remove themselves from human civilized society are the people that need to join the real world.

 

The health service is kept damn busy treating the addicts of legal drugs. Why on earth should we legalize other drugs? So people can make legal money from it? So the Government can tax it? So people can become addicts easier? So that drugs are cheaper or purer? Just so current addicts can feel better about it? So they can openly wander into the health centre and demand medical treatment? I see no good reason.

 

Drug takers will kill themselves off one at a time (destroying families as they go) and to be brutal about it, i say let them - survival of the smartest.

 

In my opinion, when you volunteer yourself to illegal drugs you give up your rights to be treated the same as the rest of the law abiding public.

[Sudden Stop]

So it is just a simple case of saying should the country continue to lose vast amounts of money on this problem or does it start to make money on this problem , thats the way i see it

 

From the money 'made' from drugs, how much of it is going to be wasted treating addicts in the hospital?

 

Cigarettes and alcohol are taxed and yet the health service is still under funded and swamped by people with heart disease, liver problems, lung and other cancers.

 

Keep them illegal.

[Guest Anonymous]

hey sudden stop do you drink alcohol? have you noticed the quantity of people f**ked up we that around here? i like many of my age and also those older and younger than me experimented with illegal drugs and had some really great nights out during that period . i have since totally given it up , well grown out of it really. I am 30 now physically and mentally fit and highly qualified in my chosen profession and i am far from alone.

I agree that the drug problems among the shetland population is not good but i think it would be better under government control instead of criminal control an d remember they are freely walking into the health centre NOW to get treatment for there drug problems.

And it is a misconception to think that to make some or all drugs legal will lead to the masses flocking to get them , the opposite is true , many young people are drawn to drugs because it is the forbidden fruit and i was one of them , i smoked a joint before i smoked a ciggarette for this reason

you are either totally out of touch with the reality around you or you made that last post to see what kind of response you got???

[Guest Anonymous]

oh sharn just said i wis 30 in dat last post when im really 32!

dam looks like i picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!

[DamnSaxon]

Most of the people I have met who want drugs legalised are user them selves

And are therefore likely to be better informed about the issue than people who allow the Daily Mail, government, etc. to scare the pants off them about it.