Should drugs be legalised?

[Fjool]

I already gave examples which illustrate why but, to be more explicit: To reduce the harm caused by their use and to help ensure that others aren't affected by the choices of one.

 

Are you suggesting that we shouldn't have laws which forbid the sale of alcohol to minors? Or that we allow people to drive vehicles when under the influence?

[Evil Inky]

 

Unconsidered prohibition of randomly selected substances, however, is ludicrous.

 

Why?

 

Short answer: it makes the problem worse.

[Fjool]

Of course, if your huge text was a mistake and you were asking about the point Inky has responded to, then I direct you to his answer.

[Claudias]

Forbidding something does not make it go away. Heroin has been around for centuries,has been a banned substance for many years,yet many sane, healthy,moderate people who can afford it enjoy it's benefits. The same is true for many other drugs.

 

As for drink; many European children are allowed alcohol from a very early age and grow up knowing how to handle it properly. British children are encouraged to 'binge drink' with the sole purpose of getting drunk. Banning the supply of alcohol to minors does not get rid of the underlying causes.

 

Drink driving; Have all the bans,prohibitions and large fines removed the problem? No. There will be at least one case in the Times this Friday.

 

Self prohibition is the ONLY way to tackle these problems.

[Evil Inky]

Drink driving; Have all the bans,prohibitions and large fines removed the problem? No.

Have mandatory life sentences removed the problem of murder ?

[Fjool]

You are preaching to the choir, Claudias; I agree with what you've just said, almost 100%.

 

I don't, however, believe that we can have a free-for-all with absolutely no control. Even if we only control the quality of the substances in question to minimise the dangers. Moonshine anyone?

 

You are right that people need to be responsible for their own actions but that does not mean we can simply permit any behaviour and expect society to react sensibly. I maintain that some measure of control is necessary.

 

Should it be legal to 'spike' people, for example?

[Evil Inky]

I maintain that some measure of control is necessary.

 

Should it be legal to 'spike' people, for example?

 

Or to smoke while performing open heart surgery ?

[Roachmill]

Forbidding something does not make it go away. Heroin has been around for centuries,has been a banned substance for many years,yet many sane, healthy,moderate people who can afford it enjoy it's benefits. The same is true for many other drugs.

 

I'm with you there.

 

As for drink; many European children are allowed alcohol from a very early age and grow up knowing how to handle it properly. British children are encouraged to 'binge drink' with the sole purpose of getting drunk. Banning the supply of alcohol to minors does not get rid of the underlying causes.

 

Banning doesn't get rid of it but it sure cuts down on the numbers.

 

Drink driving; Have all the bans,prohibitions and large fines removed the problem? No. There will be at least one case in the Times this Friday.

 

Do you truly think that if drink driving were legal the number of folk doing it would decrease?

 

Self prohibition is the ONLY way to tackle these problems.

 

And that's never (note the reserve used not to make that ALL CAPS ) going to happen. Brain washing gets my vote.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Fjool wrote:

I maintain that some measure of control is necessary.

 

Should it be legal to 'spike' people, for example?

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your argument is irrelevent. To drink drive, spike people, or perform open heart surgery while smoking is putting another at risk against their will and has nothing to do with this debate. where as what you do with your own body in your own time hurting noone, is your own business, and has nothing to do with pigs or politics."whosoever lays hands on me to govern is an usurper and a tyrant and I declare them my enemy".

where do you control freaks draw the line, perhaps make everyone jog ten mile a day by law as a health incentive, or lock up and starve the fatties till they comply with surgeon genereral weight specifications. perhaps you just need someone to look down your nose at to take your mind of your own failings.[/u]

[Fjool]

where do you control freaks draw the line,

 

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/7291/1143439398189jl8.jpg

[KOYAANISQATSI]

a'right maybe that last bit got fired from the hip a bit, hadn't read all previous pages nothing personal there what I meant to growl aboot was that what people get up to in concern to others is the business of society where as what they do to themselves is their own, with perhaps the exeption of friends and family not the state. Drink driving, smoking in pubs, or murdering people may be desirable options but if the greater whole frowns on such action it is the duty of a citizen to comply. If you want to live in mossbank, stab your eye out and cut a ball off and blame it on the mushrooms then thats your own perogative, though perhaps some counciling could be made available but no matter what the choice it belongs to the person concerned unless their sectioned under the mentel health whatsit, but policing and criminilising those who dabble is a broken pencil.

sorry bout the nose thing I'm sure it's level and lovley.

P.S. nice pussy by the way.

[Twerto]

a'right maybe that last bit got fired from the hip a bit, hadn't read all previous pages nothing personal there what I meant to growl aboot was that what people get up to in concern to others is the business of society where as what they do to themselves is their own, with perhaps the exeption of friends and family not the state. Drink driving, smoking in pubs, or murdering people may be desirable options but if the greater greater whole frowns on such action it is duty of a citizen to comply. If you want to live in mossbank, stab your eye out and cut a ball off and blame it on the mushrooms then thats your own perogative, though perhaps some counciling could be made available but no matter what the choice it belongs to the person concerned unless their sectioned under the mentel health whatsit, but policing and criminilising those who dabble is a broken pencil.

sorry bout the nose thing I'm sure it's level and lovley.

P.S. nice pussy by the way.

 

 

The guy you speak of in mossbank did this and then went through to his neighbours to show them what he had done.. not really keeping it to himself there

[Evil Inky]

The guy you speak of in mossbank did this and then went through to his neighbours to show them what he had done.. not really keeping it to himself there

 

It's not something you're going to be able to do very often - best to make the most of it

[Twerto]

lol true.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

DRUG PROHIBITION:

Perhaps the earliest recorded example in the old world is the prohibition of the use of alcohol under Islamic law (Sharia), which is usually attributed to passages in the Qur'an purportedly dating from the 7th century. Some Muslim scholars assert that this prohibition actually addresses only the abuse of alcohol, but they do not have sufficient numbers or authority to override the familiar total prohibition. Although Islamic law is often interpreted as prohibiting all intoxicants, the ancient practice of hashish smoking has continued throughout the history of Islam, against varying degrees of resistance. A major campaign against hashish-eating Sufis was conducted in Egypt in the 11th and 12th centuries resulting among other things the public torture of hashish users.

Religious intolerance was also the motivation for drug prohibition in Christian Europe. In a move interpreted as support of the efforts of the Spanish Inquisition against the Arabs, in a 1484 fiat Pope Innocent VIII banned the use of cannabis. The Inquisition proceeded apace in Meso-America and South America, where peyote , ololiúqui, toloáche, teonanácatl and other sacred plants of the Mexican culture were prohibited as works of the devil.

In Northern Europe, the Protestants were also responsible for passing drug laws motivated by religious intolerance, according to Stephen Harrod Buhner. Buhner argues that the 1516 Reinheitsgebot, which stipulates that beer may only contain water, barley and hops was a "reflection of Protestant irritation about 'drugs' and the Catholic Church". Unlike the typically stimulating herbal blends widely used at the time (e.g. gruit), hops cause sedation and reduce libido. The exclusive use of hops had been compulsory in France since 1268.

Coffee almost followed the same fate as cannabis as its use spread from Ethiopia through the Middle East to Europe. Its use was banned in the Middle East on numerous occasions as in conflict with Islamic law, but eventually it came to be accepted. The introduction of coffee in Europe from Muslim Turkey also prompted calls for it to be banned as the Devil's work, however Pope Clement VIII sanctioned its use, declaring that it was "so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it".

In late Qing Imperial China, opium imported by the British East India Company was vastly consumed by all social classes in Southern China. Between 1821 and 1837 imports of the drug increased five-fold. The Chinese government attempted to end this trade, on public health grounds. The effort was initially successful with the destruction of all British opium stock in May 1839 . However, to protect this trade, the British declared war on China (First Opium War). China was defeated and the war which ended with the Treaty of Nanking, which protected foreign opium smugglers from Chinese law. A related American treaty promised to end the smuggling of opium by Americans. It took until the next Opium War for the trade to be legalised. The resulting trade greatly weakened Chinese society, and set into motion a chain of events that would lead to the massive Taiping Rebellion.

The next great wave of anti-drug legislation began in the late 19th century, and continues to the present day. The United States has been the driving force in the present-day "War on Drugs".

The first law outright prohibiting the use of a specific drug was a San Francisco, California ordinance which banned the smoking of opium in opium dens in 1875 . The inspiration was "many women and young girls, as well as young men of respectable family, were being induced to visit the Chinese opium-smoking dens, where they were ruined morally and otherwise," though there is no evidence to suggest this ever happened. The primary cause of the movement for the law was a moral panic based on a fear of Chinese immigrants and other railroad workers seducing white women with the drug.

This was followed by other laws throughout the country, and federal laws which barred Chinese people from trafficking in opium. Though the laws affected the use and distribution of opium by Chinese immigrants, no action was taken against the producers of such products as laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol, commonly taken as a panacea by white Americans. The dividing line was usually the manner in which the drug was ingested. Chinese immigrants smoked it, while it was included in various kinds of medicines for people of European descent. The laws were aimed at smoking opium, but not otherwise ingesting it.

As a result of this discrepancy, modern commentators believe that these laws were racist in origin and intent.

1937 saw the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act. Harry J. Anslinger (Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner) testified in hearings on the subject that the hemp plant needed to be banned because it had a violent "effect on the degenerate races". This specifically referred to Mexican immigrants who had entered the country, seeking jobs during the Great Depression. The law passed quickly and with little debate. The American Medical Association (AMA) protested the law soon after, both on the grounds of actual disagreement with the law and the supporters' lies on the subject; Anslinger and others had claimed the AMA had vocalized support when, in fact, the opposite was true. The passing of this law, along with the subsequent lies regarding the effects of cannabis, have deemed it more of a conspiracy than a racist act to control Mexicans. Although the latter is true, there exists a lot of evidence, as explained in "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" by Jack Herer, that the law was passed in order to prohibit industrial hemp from becoming a competing industry with paper and cotton, but more importantly, newly discovered plastics, and the fuel industry.

In response to rising drug use amongst young people and the counter-culture in particular, efforts to enforce prohibition were strengthened in many countries from the late 1960s onwards. In 1972 United States President Richard Nixon announced the commencement of the so-called "War on Drugs." Later, President Reagan added the position of drug czar to the President's Executive Office.

The current Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Drug Czar, John P. Walters has described the drug problem in the United States as a "public health challenge," and he has publicly eschewed the notion of a "war on drugs." He has supported additional resources for substance abuse treatment and has touted random student drug testing as an effective prevention strategy. However, the actions of the Office of National Drug Control Policy continue to belie the rhetoric of a shift away from primarily enforcement-based responses to illegal drug use.

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So there you go, prohibition is mainly about enforcing outdated laws of racists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_prohibition