Should drugs be legalised?

[KOYAANISQATSI]

If a man has smoked marijuana on a weekly basis or has been exposed to hashish for an extended period of time, the chances of testicular cancer double compared to someone who has never smoked marijuana.

 

http://blogs.usatoday.com/betterlife/2009/02/testicular-canc.html

 

Oh f**k off.

Are they sure it's not eating eggs that are to blame.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

The unproven belief that Marijuana affects the male hormones and the relation between those hormones and TC.

“Science†could not get any more weak if it stated the moon was the sun at night.

 

http://ablogination.tn420.org/blog/index.php/hwr/2009/02/09/tennessee_medical_marijuana_act_of_2009

 

The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.

 

The new findings “were against our expectations,†said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.

“We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use,†he said. “What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.â€

 

Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used Tashkin’s previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less concern than previously thought.

[ArabiaTerra]

"equasy" more dangerous than ecstasy, report finds.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/02/equivalence_in_death.html

[BALLACK]

Drugs should be legalised, absolutley.

 

I chose not to choose life and try something else!

 

Loves it.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

I had an episode, If I wasn't caught I think I would have had an early death or summint....

 

Tho I had to do it all my self, took over 5 years so far, and so far so good.

 

So we must criminalise all individual free choice to protect the weak from themselves.

 

An age limit would seem more sane while allowing adults to make their own decisions with their own lives.

Not all drug users wish to destroy themselves, some just may wish to relax with the odd toke.

 

Or should we start shooting the horses to protect those in danger because they like them.

[MaxFusion]

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

Thomas Jefferson

 

The danger posed by so-called Dangerous drugs is quite unlike that posed by Hurricanes or plagues, but is rather like the danger posed (to some people) by, say, eating pork or masturbating.....which strike us down as "active victims", that is, only if we succumb to their temptation

Thomas Jefferson

[KOYAANISQATSI]

We could do away with driving rules, I like adrenalin

 

Choosing to intake, into ones body, one substance that is illegal, over one that is legal and which will cause much more harm does not equate to putting others at risk by driving the wrong way up a one way street

 

You have to work within the system that is there and try too change it to suit yourself, is that not selfish tho.

 

Are you saying that no matter if a law is right or wrong, we should not challenge it or question it in relation to ourselves and if someone so much as uses a plant that has grown on our Earth; for their own amusement, then it is right to lock them up because certain others say that is the way it should be.

 

when do we start to regulate what goes ito recreational drugs

 

When the law allows people to grow their own, instead of buying from an illegal market would be as good a time as any.

 

So let the weak die, perhaps they don't deserve to live, they serve no purpose......how many folk died throught drink do you know, did they really deserve it, did you tell them your the one with the black cap on

 

I'm not sure what you're asking or accusing me of there, but no I am not wearing a cap or hat of any description at the moment, and even if I was, I don't know of any alcoholic that would be the slightest bit interested in what colour it was.

[Styles]

How funny, i tried to stay queit after i was threatend, but i stilll want the schools closed, to me any other gibbering is just asking for it, if they cant handel it, o deary me.

[Styles]

I know a person that took every drug they could for ten years, they are still fine, nothing now, but what a farce, they are so fine and so take care x

[Ertieiddabanks]

 

You dont have to drive up a one way street to get adrenalin, you could do 80 mph down the South Road (oh, folk do that already)

 

 

 

Adrenaline is the best, natural drug on the planet. I did a skydiving course years ago and after a jump i'd be high as a kite for about 2 weeks, hugely motivated to do stuff, couldn't sit still and immensely confident in everything i did. I'd recommend it to anyone.

[justlookin]

shetlandpeat, all drugs should be legalised. It is not for the government nor you to decide what a person can an cannot ingest.

[Ghostrider]

When a judge condemned a person to death he wore a black cap, you say that the weak have no place in your world, these folk who destroy themselves, cos in your world there is no place for the weak.

 

Just because there are a few who are weak that need protecting, that is not a reasonable, sane, logical or fair reason to use as justification to ban everyone from accessing certain substances.

 

As the law stands, the powers that be are telling me, as well as everyone else, that I am too "weak" to assess the "risks" to myself of numerous substances, and to make a sane and rational decision as to what I do to myself with them. That to me is extremely arrogant, patronising and insulting. I never asked the Government or anyone else to "protect" me from me, and I sure as hell didn't give them permission to do so. I object in the strongest possible terms to their high handed unwelcome interference in my life, and my choices as to how I choose to use and/or abuse my body.

 

By all means protect the weak and vulnerable, I'm all for that, but instead of pursuing an old, tired and failed plan, which could have been seen as a failure before it started, and is, has, and always will generate an amount of negativity and denies those who are neither weak and vulnerable a freedom of choice. Energy should be diverted wholly from it and put towards identifying the few who are genuinely weak and vulnerable, and ensuring that they are protected. No-one is protected from anything right now, and it is the weak and vulnerable who were the original justification for enacting the legislation in the first place who are still being hardest done by.

 

The present legislation is like putting a heavy armed guard on a small side door of a building through which only one person can pass at a time,but leaving the main doors wide open through which people can come running in six abreast.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Are we being selective about drugs, I dont think anyone wants a place full of folk openly injecting or smoking.

 

Folk can't drink on the street but are still allowed to buy alcohol.......your point is?

 

Are you not going to do the decent thing and promote heroin, cocaine, 'E', meth, speed or stroids

 

To each their own but drug promotion is not what this is about, but the laws and there implications over free choice.

 

you say that the weak have no place in your world,

 

Perhaps you misread my spelling or perhaps you just didn't understand. What I had said was:

"So we must criminalise all individual free choice to protect the weak from themselves."

Meaning - is it up to the law to protect people from taking what may or may not cause them harm.

If it is our duty to uphold the law; did you take any bottles of vodka out of alcoholics hands today? or did you put on your black cap and walk on by?

The desire to experience some altered state of consciousness seems to be an intrinsic part of the human condition, and the persistence that people have shown in pursuit of this goal is as remarkable as the diversity of ways in which they have sought such altered states. This same diversity is shown in the range of different types of drug taking. Whether taken alone or in company, for relaxation or stimulation, to satisfy some personal need or to comply with social pressures, we are surrounded by drugs, some more visible than others - the cups of coffee and tea, the glasses of beer, wine and whisky, the cigarettes, the snorts of cocaine, the joints, the tablets of acid, the fixes of heroin, and the ubiquitous tranquilliser and sleeping pills. It may be that every drug-induced state has its counterpart in a state of mind arrived at without drugs, but drug taking still remains one of the easiest and most immediate ways of altering psychological states; for some people the ease and immediacy with which some drugs acieve their effects proves particulary seductive. So long as there is drug takers there will be drug casualties. No form of drug taking is without its dangers, but the quest to eliminate drug taking has proved to be the search for a chimera. Drug taking is here to stay and one way or another we must all learn to live with drugs.

[Medziotojas]

 

Then, mm hash can stay in you for weeks, we now need to develop a test to say you are able to drive or operate machinery, at your work perhaps or driving your kids to the beach...

 

This has always been a bit of a grey area as far as prescription drugs are concerned. It seems to be up to the law to decide. The guidelines may advise against operating machinery if you feel drowsy, but surely if there is any element of risk then operating machinery should be forbidden.

 

Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is quite a vague law, and people should have more concrete information on which drugs they can or cannot drive while under the influence of. For example, someone driving under the influence of paracetamol or aspirin may not pose a great risk, but what about someone under the influence of valium or methadone (on prescription) or suchlike; where do you draw the line? I would also question whether some of the anti-depressants currently on the market are safe. I remember being on a course of ADs some years ago and for the first week all I wanted to do was sleep, yet I was working and operating machinery--and taking time out when I felt drowsy.

[Fjool]

^ A few years back, I was prescribed amyltriptyline for post-surgery pain. The doctor assured me that it was perfectly safe to drive whilst taking. Weirdly, although I felt really spaced out and like I was bobbing up and down on a boat, my driving was not impaired. Reaction times, attention span, etc were all normal, or better than normal. I had no problems with any of my normal tasks (even my day job which requires a high degree of concentration and problem solving) I just did them all feeling like I was floating around in the clouds and watching myself from behind my own head.

 

I stopped taking them pretty quickly and put up with the pain instead because I wasn't convinced that this permanent out-of-body sensation was genuinely a safe experience whilst driving.

 

I see alot of the -ve side of drug taking when I was in London, small shop keepers going bust cos of shoplifting and old ladies gettin mugged and so on

However, these kind of problems are more often the exaggerated symptoms of prohibition, not the drugs themselves. Proper regulation would go a long way towards reducing these problems.

 

Then, mm hash can stay in you for weeks, we now need to develop a test to say you are able to drive or operate machinery, at your work perhaps or driving your kids to the beach..

This is a popular misunderstanding. Yeah, hash does linger in the body but, once it has been absorbed into the fat cells, it is no longer affecting your brain. The actual psychoactive effects are pretty short lived.

 

The other thing which is not currently clear is whether cannabis does, in fact, impair one's driving. The evidence is mixed, tending towards suggesting a negative impact. On balance I'd recommend that nobody partake before driving. Why risk it?

 

The Department of Transport have an interesting report on this subject:

 

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme3/cannabisanddrivingareviewoft4764

 

An example of how vague and uncertain the whole subject is can be see in a single paragraph from the above report:

 

Third, the style of driving performance after consumption of cannabis can be interpreted as cautious. Evidence of increased caution includes fewer overtaking attempts, larger distances required for overtaking, slower speeds, and larger headways. This caution can describe either the behaviour or the strategy of the driver. For example, cautious behaviour may arise without deliberation as a result of alterations in perception and control (e.g., distorted perception of time and space). Alternatively, a driver may decide upon a deliberate strategy to act cautiously by adopting a reduced threshold of acceptable risk. This decision may be motivated by the recognition of performance impairment. Of course, neither basis is mutually exclusive; changes in behaviour may be a result of both (unconscious) psychomotor impairment and (conscious) cognitive strategy.