Should drugs be legalised?

[KOYAANISQATSI]

surely you cannot advocate a country in which its acceptable to compare the buying of bottled beer to the purchase of currently illegal drugs.

 

I can compare the results of prohibition, if beer was listed among illegal drugs as a Noble Experiment.

 

Prohibition was demanded by the "dries" — primarily pietistic Protestant denominations, especially the Methodists, Northern Baptists, Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, Disciples of Christ, Congregationalists, Quakers, and Scandinavian Lutherans. They identified saloons as politically corrupt and drinking as a personal sin.

 

Many social problems have been attributed to the Prohibition era. Mafia bootlegging manifested in response to the effect of Prohibition. A profitable, often violent, black market for alcohol flourished. Powerful gangs corrupted law enforcement agencies, leading to Racketeering. Stronger liquor surged in popularity because its potency made it more profitable to smuggle.

The cost of enforcing Prohibition was high, and the lack of tax revenues on alcohol (some $500 million annually nationwide) affected government coffers.

When repeal of Prohibition occurred in 1933, organized crime lost nearly all of its black market alcohol profits in most states.

 

but the proof and that i cannot offer to prevent the legalisation of drugs is a lot less damaging than the proof you cannot offer to promote the legalisation and the health effects to an entire generation therein.

 

J D Rockefeller delivers

 

At the end of Prohibition, some supporters openly admitted its failure. A quote from a letter, written in 1932 by wealthy industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., states:

When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.

[shetlandpeat]

turningright, Koy is right on with that post......

 

You only need to visit The Haig or Amsterdam and look at the the way folk are treated there...If your honnest you get all the support you need, but, push the boundaries then the law will be enforced...

 

The reason for the "openess" is to be able to monitor the situation...

 

The whole package in Portugal is about removing the stigma and the feeling of isotation, in Portugal, arrest rates remain at similar levels as before de-criminalisation...but folk find it easier to seek help, it is not hidden behind some catchy title

 

You cannot beat folk into stopping, and it will eventually catch up with most folks, event the most ardent supporter of bashing folk have to think again when it is a close friend who surcums...

[JAStewart]

Oh for godsake:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8334774.stm

[trout]

Legal 'party' drug claims another life as Scot suffers GBL overdose From Scotsman on 30 October 2009

 

Legal/illegal - a drug is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function! (World Health Organization. (1969). WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence. Sixteenth report. (Technical report series. No. 407). Geneva:World Health Organization.)

 

Check back to trout wrote on Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:02 pm with reference to American Prohibition.

 

There's somewhere in here too that I made a post about "What if alcohol was just invented today" detailing how its effects would instantly categorise it as an A class substance. Can't find it right now?!?

[Styles]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1224162/Drug-tsar-claimed-ecstasy-LSD-harmful-alcohol-sacked.html

 

You could not make it up! Labour sacking people for telling the scientific truth about drugs! Even all the Daily mail readers think he was only saying what is fact! Just because it does not fit in with what labour want to hear he is given the boot and they will probally put in a yes man instead. Pathetic.

[Medziotojas]

^no 'probably' about it; anyone inclined to disagree with government policy is unlikely to remain in the post for very long, or so it would seem.

[bruntwo]

if the government were to legalise cannabis and the growth of cannabis, the financial protential form taxes would be enormous. I remember in one of the very first budget speaches that gordon brown delivered, he put up the price of tobacco and cigarettes, saying the extra taxes raised would go to the national health service. surely the same could be done from the legalised sale of cannabis. The reason we have so many heroin addicts in this country, is because heroin is more readily available than cannabis, there is more crime committed through heroin addiction than therwe is through cannabis addiction, alcohol addiction and tobbacco addiction, get rid of heroin, cut down on crime levels, it's that simple. Here we are fighting a war in the country that produces about 95 per cent of the heroin that comes into this country, why are we not bombing the poppy fields as well as the taliban

[ladyfootballer]

Anybody watching this tonight? I think it's one of the worst programmes BBC scotland has ever put out. I can't beleive Bill Paterson is narrating. What's happend to him? A real dogs against drugs barn door job with loads of police running about chasing horses that have bolted after the doors have shut.

 

What happens when 90% of the population are using cocaine. Do you chase around after them and lock them all up. Where is the effort and resources in working with society inside the barn and trying to look at the reasons why Scots drink like hell and use more recreational drugs than anyone else?

 

I'm sick of seeing patronising cops talking abut military efforts to punish the users. The sherriff wearing his important looking wig for gods sake and looking down his nose and judging folk as bad or good in their attempts to please him is earl stewart stuff. Why on earth does this country not deal with the cause of drug use instead of the outcomes - it's crazy.

 

Why can't we use common sense to address this problem instead of daily mail tactics that only make things worse! Ohhhh, it's annoying.

[snow]

Bombing the "Poppy" fields would be a good start

I would think that if they kept desroying the areas where they grow the stuff that would go a long way into interupting the sources..

 

Is there a reason why the powers that be cant destroy these places?

Some kind of chemical could be used that renders the area useless for yrs to come..

 

These folk are the scum of the earth and livng of the misery of thousands

[JustMe]

Bombing the "Poppy" fields would be a good start

I would think that if they kept destroying the areas where they grow the stuff that would go a long way into interrupting the sources..

Valid thought except for one technical point which is that Cocaine does not come from poppy fields. Anyway destroying the only income the producers of heroin or cocaine without replacing it with something that will give the farmers an income is not the way to go especially with poppy farmers where the alternative to producing a cash crop might well be to join the Taliban.

[MaxFusion]

at least the Taliban didn't want them growing poppies either.....or any other drugs for that matter!

 

You're quite right tho, cocaine don't even come from that part o da world

[snow]

My apologies ...My opinion is about the poppy fields....

[Pleepsie]

at least the Taliban didn't want them growing poppies either.....or any other drugs for that matter!

 

You're quite right tho, cocaine don't even come from that part o da world

 

The U.S. military assault under way in southern Afghanistan seeks to oust Taliban forces but has the secondary mission of disrupting insurgent drug trafficking in a region notorious for large-scale opium production, U.S. and Afghan officials said Sunday.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/15/afghan-assault-targets-drug-trade/

 

The Taliban uses the drug trade as its main source of funding for weapons and explosives.

[Guest Anonymous]

would hope theres little or no support for condoning class A drug abuse, personally i'm not into all this "treat them with love" theory mainly because in the meantime they'se sold all your stuff ,robbed your wallet etc. Personally i'm more in favour of boot camp tactics

[JustMe]

would hope theres little or no support for condoning class A drug abuse, personally i'm not into all this "treat them with love" theory mainly because in the meantime they'se sold all your stuff ,robbed your wallet etc. Personally i'm more in favour of boot camp tactics

Wrong tactics!. Drug addicts are addicted to drugs. Now imagine how hard some people find it to give up legal addictions to tobacco or alcohol and then multiply that by quite a lot and you start to see how drug addiction drives those addicts to crime.

 

There is another way. Regard addicts (including low level dealers dealing to fund their habit) as people who are sick and invest time and money to cure them rather than handing out pointless punishments. And not just help to get off the drug (or alcohol) but help to stay off it. For ever.