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Should drugs be legalised?


Should drugs be legalised?  

193 members have voted

  1. 1. Should drugs be legalised?

    • Yes
      74
    • No
      86
    • Its not a yes/no question
      43
    • Undecided
      2


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Listening to radio 2 at lunchtime.. they had someone who had been campaigning for a few years to the NHS about this..

 

One point that was made agaisnt it and I kinda agree with.. is the drug dealers will alway offer more than the NHS can..

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That's no more than we were suggesting in this forum last week, anyway. Maybe the BMA reads Shetlink.

 

The Afghan opium trade is probably older than Afghanistan itself. Were it not for the fears in the West of "junkies" and "drug-lords" that trade would have been very lucrative, and, who knows, perhaps Afghanistan wouldn't be the same place it is today.

 

Not that I was taking you literally DamnSaxon, I just thought it a point worth making :)

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It has been suggested (most frequently by people wearing shiny kitchen products on their heads, admittedly) that the opium trade is actually far too lucrative to the likes of the CIA, etc to be legitimised. What better way to finance clandestine operations than via a black-market resource such as heroin?

 

Whether this is plausible or not I will leave as an excercise to the reader.

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Plus folk would rather know what they were getting and what strength than takeing pot luck to what some dealer gives them.

 

yes i agree.. but the point im at is before it is even sold on the black market.. i expect the farmers dont even see that they are selling to the black market anyway.

 

and agreed it would possably eventually turn to the NHS favour as people woudl buy there rather than a dodgy dealer.. but I would expect it woudl be an almost impossable hurdle to cross..

 

a) the dealer has the upper hand from day one.. the farmer will alway sell to the highest buyer.. these people imo are not careing what happens to their crop ( if they even know ) they just want money.. so morality doesnt come into this imo.

 

B) NHS will probable never be able to offer more than the dealer.. never being able to supply or deal with the demand.. thus never getting a foot hold to even start converting people to the more moral way of things..

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I don't think that the idea is to remove all controls on who the opium can be sold to, Twerto. As it currently stands production is entirely prohibited and very dangerous for the farmer; most barely make a subsistence. The huge profits are not currently at the growing end. Growing the flowers is relatively easy compared to the problems of processing and smuggling heroin.

 

If a grower was offered a legitimate and safe route for their crop and harvest was looked after correctly, there is no reason why the majority of them wont follow the safer, more efficient route.

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So John Reid is now admitting that we have urgent and serious prison population problems; so much so that it's time to start releasing muggers and rapists a wee bit early.

 

Instead of this, how about not throwing people in jail for things which shouldn't be illegal in the first place?

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6293225.stm

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Only 40%, but with others who understand the situation is more complex than an outright ban. And yet others who have changed their position slightly as the debate has progressed. ;)

 

After all.. only 36% think they definitely should not be legal.

 

No matter what you say Fjool, the figure is 40% at the moment. What evidence do you have that people have changed their minds either way ?

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Damn... was hoping to add another point before someone replied! :P

 

Are you saying that nobody on this thread has changed their opinions on this topic even slightly, Moorit? I have reconsidered my own position, for example. The poll doesn't reflect the progress of the debate.

 

I was going to add that, since we're talking statistically here:

 

Of those 18 who voted NO, there are likely to be 4 smokers and 9 or 10 drinkers. Which is an odd position.

 

Of course, this is nonsense, since the chances are that smokers and drinkers would be unlikely to vote NO, I would think. I have no evidence either way but I'm only really saying that you can't draw too many conclusions from this poll for various reasons.

 

Ultimately though, Style's point is that there are more people prepared to answer YES than NO. The rest are undecided or have other concerns and questions.

 

This is not a black and white argument with static opinions.

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