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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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What do folks think of this then?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/swiss-voters-give-boost-to-heroin-on-the-nhs-1042730.html

 

Seems to me that Switzerland are to be congratulated (once more) on their progressive and intelligent attitude towards this problem. Indeed, so much so that heroin is not a problem for them.

 

Also, did anyone see Theroux in Philadelphia last night? What a place! Gee.. just goes to show what happens when you prohibit drugs, yet give people a whole bunch of guns instead... :roll:

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Girl, 14, charged over drugs haul

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7773196.stm

 

Strathclyde Police said heroin and cocaine, with an estimated street value of about £290,000, were recovered during the raid.

 

Where has a 14 year old girl get £290,000

even if she paid less than that it is still a lot of money for some one her age

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A 53-year-old man and three women, aged 48, 25, and 22 were also arrested.

A father, mother and 3 daughters sitting around the kitchen table cutting the drugs into saleable amounts?

 

Context is everything. :wink:

 

Maybe they all robbed a bank or did the girls have a Saturday job

So much for context :!:

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  • 1 month later...

I wrote to Carmichael about the Misuse of Drugs Act a couple of years ago and he answered, if I'm remembering correctly, about Europe, and how nothing could change because of our obligations towards the US. He seemed to be saying, 'That's the way it is, I'm afraid'.

 

I'm not sure if I can find the letter now though and may have misremembered his stance.

 

Thing is; it's not a question of having the balls. It's a question of more people understanding the topic. No politician can easily act against a majority view and expect to be heard properly. It is worth writing to your MPs for this very reason; it helps shape opinion, and gives support to their statements made to other MPs.

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When I did my RGN training I worked at Kingseat hospital for a number of weeks. The ward I was on was an acute ward and we had quite a few drug addicts. Some had developed mental illness and some were just trying to get clean. I'll never forget an 18 year old boy who was diagnosed with drug-induced schizophrenia who was there. He was a heavy cannabis user. He was so tormented by visual and auditory hallucinations he spent his whole day lying outside underneath a tree. I can't remember hearing him speak. I am interested in how his diagnosis was reached - how do they know he wouldn't have developed shizophrenia anyway?

 

The heroin addicts were prescribed Methodone and it was pitiful watching them lick out their 30ml medicine pots. They suffered terribly and they never lasted more than 2 days before discharging themselves. There was a long walk around the grounds of Kingseat called "The mile" and there was one young heroin addict I befriended who really tried hard to get clean. His girlfriend had just found out she was pregnant and he wanted to get off heroin. We used to walk round the mile 2 or 3 times in one shift just to try and keep him focused, but he had the flu-like symptoms of withdrawal and was obviously in pain. He discharged himself on day 3.

 

I feel like they were let down but I don't know what the answer is.

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I am interested in how his diagnosis was reached - how do they know he wouldn't have developed shizophrenia anyway?

Pretty much, they don't. It seems that the best we can do is draw a conclusion and say... well, he took this, so it might have been responsible. There was a day when his condition would have been blamed on masturbation, or the devil.

 

In the case of cannabis, however, it's a bit more plausible because we do have demonstrable effects to draw from. Indeed, the conclusion is much more reasonable than the other examples I just gave. The documentary on cannabis that Koy' linked to had some interesting studies on rats, which might go some of the way to explaining the things we see in people. Certainly there appears to be good evidence to suggest that keeping cannabis away from the developing brain is necessary, as this is when people are most likely to be permanently affected.

 

So, even though we're able to observe a potential link for populations, in the case of any particular individual there is no way to say that this person definitely would or would not have gone on to develop schizophrenia without cannabis. It's all a question of likelihood.

 

Here's a statistic that I've selected from www.schizophrenia.com.

It has been estimated, for example, that between 8% and 13% of people that have schizophrenia today would never have developed the illness without exposure to cannabis

(Please note the simplicity here in my choice. There's a lot more to say; I'm just making a quick point, so bear with me please. ;))

 

What this seems to be saying is that between 87% and 92% of schizophrenia cases would have arisen whether or not cannabis was used. There are certainly many other factors involved, however. This is an enormous topic with many facets, but this nugget goes perhaps a little way towards demonstrating how much unravelling must be done when attempting to make any sense of this situation.

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The Government's drug advisory body is expected to recommend downgrading ecstasy to a class B drug.

 

But ministers have signalled that they will reject the council's advice and keep the substance as a class A drug.

 

A Home Office spokesman said: "Ecstasy can and does kill unpredictably; there is no such thing as a 'safe dose'. The Government firmly believes that ecstasy should remain a Class A drug."

 

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) will publish its long-awaited investigation into the harm caused by the dance drug later.

 

Ecstasy use is linked to around 30 deaths a year, up from ten a year in the early 1990s.

 

Fatalities are caused by massive organ failure from overheating or the effects of drinking too much water.

 

The publication of the ACMD report has been overshadowed by comments made by its chairman, who compared the dangers of ecstasy with those of riding a horse.

 

Professor David Nutt later apologised for any offence he caused to the families of ecstasy victims. He is expected to repeat his apology at the launch of the publication.

 

Prof Nutt said he had "no intention of trivialising the dangers of ecstasy" after his comments were first reported at the weekend.

 

He was publicly slapped down by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who accused him of "insensitivity to the families of victims".

 

Prof Nutt said: "I am sorry to those who may have been offended by my article. I would like to apologise to those who have lost friends and family due to ecstasy use.

 

"I would like to assure those who have read my article that I had no intention of trivialising the dangers of ecstasy."

 

But he maintained he thought the statistical comparison between the two activities was a "useful" one.

 

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090211/tuk-ecstasy-should-be-downgraded-dba1618.html

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What gets me is the way the government repeatedly say "We don't care what the expert opinion is. If it doesn't match what we've already decided, we will just ignore it." You can bet your bottom dollar, though, that they'd shout from the rooftops any recommendations which supported their entrenched beliefs.

 

What a great way to make decisions. :roll: Just another of many reasons why this government suck.

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