shetlandpeat Posted March 14, 2011 Report Share Posted March 14, 2011 Yes precisely bob me ol hog. he missed you too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OP8S Posted March 14, 2011 Report Share Posted March 14, 2011 Precisely. I wonder if bob would like to share with us where he gets his information from ? The media ? Personal experience ? Would you like to share with the forum what substance(s) floats your boat ? Seem to know a lot about hard drugs, especially this " sharn " you speak of...that must be pretty hard stuff..., I think I'll try & get myself some. I'll try anything once, I will. and^ That's true. Loads of GPs in London would dish out methadone. You would then see the addict "selling" at least half of it in order to get heroin. If the clinic reduced the amount of methadone, they would still "top up" on the black market That's why there should be more prescribing of diamorphine. Your taking somebody who is addicted to one substance & replacing it with another. The pharmacology of methadone is quite different, most people can be stabilised on methadone if the dose is high enough. For some though for various reasons, medical or psychological methadone is unsuitable & at the moment the U.K is one of the few countries where diamorphine substitutuion therapy is not an option. Countries where supervised consumption of diamorphine i/v , or in The Netherlands where it is available on prescription as a smokeable substance have been succesful in downsizing the black market & along with a substantial drop in drug / drug related crime, health problems etc.Their systems appear to be working, as usual the U.K Government pays no notice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twerto Posted June 2, 2011 Report Share Posted June 2, 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13624303 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladyfootballer Posted June 2, 2011 Report Share Posted June 2, 2011 The so called war on drugs that has evolved since the 1971 misuse of drugs act is now universally discredited. It is hard to find any qualified experts who give it any creedence. As is clear from latest news reports on subject today. Far from eradicating or reducing hard drug use these polices are now being shown as making the problem worse. Some people on these forums question why we have an accelerating problem with heroin abuse up here. Is it because we follow this policy of war on drugs quite blindly, copying the same mistakes without trying to find more appropriate local solutions? We are focused on conviction and criminilisation in tandem with the drug dogs. Is this creating our own condensed and intensified local war on drugs? So if international war on drugs makes the problem worse our even more intense local war on drugs should have the same effect - and perhaps this is one reason why heroin use up here is so bad. It really needs new thinking not more of the counterproductive policies that have already failed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OP8S Posted June 3, 2011 Report Share Posted June 3, 2011 Precisely. The "war on drugs" is just the politicians way of dividing society. We all know that it's easier to control the population when nobody trusts each other. Because of the legality of the situation the general public will only ever hear about the negative side of substance use. People talk of others not being " normal ". We all have our own perspective individual to ourselves, if we were all a bit more understanding about the way that others felt rather than taking a defensive stance if met by another person who doesn't have the same beliefs as ourselves then we would be one step nearer a civillized society. Anybody who does think outside of the box is all too often dismissed as a crackpot as we've seen with past Governments sacking experts that were originally employed to look into the situation. Why ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArabiaTerra Posted July 13, 2011 Report Share Posted July 13, 2011 See, it works Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OP8S Posted July 13, 2011 Report Share Posted July 13, 2011 Also in Switerland, Germany & The Netherlands which show similar results, if anybody cares to look it up. So why does the UK Government not take a similar stance & revise the draconian legislation which is 40 years old this year ? 40 years of a continued increase in the number of people that take these substances, the numbers have grown again this year. Could it possibly be that it suits them to have minority of society to which blame most of the problems that Joe Public face in everyday life ( like the theft...sorry the temporary loss of a green jacket ? ), it is a very handy way to deflect what the real problems we face are. Frontline cuts, privatisation of many services, the possible loss of state pensions. Next year the number of problematic substance users will increase yet again & they might well be your children, I'm sure most people don't want that ?! Our Government are letting us down on this particular issue, along with many others. How long before they copy policies & legaslation that has already been proved succesful by other European Countries ? 330,000 folk out there scoring of the streets from organised gangs today, when will they address this situation ? When it reaches 500,000....1000000 ! It needs to be done now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baggytrousers Posted July 13, 2011 Report Share Posted July 13, 2011 as a former drug user, i can safely say its not a yes/no question. should drugs like cannabis be legalised? probably - however, we still need a framework in place to deal with any such problems that arise from this drug use. should we legalise heroin, crack, benzos or other addictive substances? well, would you like your children being able to get easy access to them? people who get addicted to drugs are no all retards as some people would have you think -- they are ordinary people just like any of us, no one wants to get addicted and everyone has the potential to be. addiction is the fine line where drug use passes over from the recreational to the problematic. while some might say that if the drug is legal and readily available at an affordable price some people can live perfectly normal happy lifes, while this is true for some, it is not the case for the many, i know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shetlandpeat Posted July 13, 2011 Report Share Posted July 13, 2011 ^^^ I understand what you are saying. We are not advocating open legalization but more controlled. To remove the stigma, educate the masses who read the red tops and Mail that an addict is not a vile degenerate, in most cases a decent person looking for a way out of their trouble.Thanks for your post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OP8S Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 Obviously there would need to be strict regulation around the distrubution of harder drugs, diamorhine, cocaine & benzos are already distributed legally through prescription. That's why I tend to think that legalisation as opposed to decriminalisation is the way forward. In that situation then a trained medical professional would provide the substance(s) chosen by the individual under tight regulation & guidlines. I'm sure the user would be prepared to pay prescription charges which would mean money going into the NHS instead of organised criminals, providing the NHS with a much needed cash boost. As for the next generation becoming recreational users or problematic addicts it's simply not the case, the evidence from every country, particularily Switzerland & Germany show a huge reduction in young people entering treatment mostly because of the collapse of the illicit trade ( one of the biggest economies globally ) & the fact that it seperates the distribution of softer substances like marajuina from the harder substances. In Switzerland marajuina is sold in licsensed shops, or grown for personal use. Diamorphine & harder substances are prescribed by GPs trained in the issues surrounding addiction. GPs in the UK prescribe substances that if not taken responsibly can be extremely dangerous & addictive, anti-depressants are given at the drop of a hat, some very hard to stop taking because of the withdrawls associated with them. If you want to overdose you need only go to a couple of different shops & buy enough paracetamol to do the trick. I can't see how the legilasation of other substances with the proper regulations on distribution would cause any more harm than is being caused today by the UK's stance where all substances from cannabis to crack are demonised by the media & Government while we watch our European counterparts providing such positive evidence for the legalisation of substance use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostrider Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 should we legalise heroin, crack, benzos or other addictive substances? well, would you like your children being able to get easy access to them? ....and they don't have exactly that already??? Could have fooled me. In a small place like Shetland, an unfortunate side effect of prohibition is that in attempting to enforce it, the powers that be are providing free advertising for the suppliers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OP8S Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 should we legalise heroin, crack, benzos or other addictive substances? well, would you like your children being able to get easy access to them? ....and they don't have exactly that already??? Could have fooled me. In a small place like Shetland, an unfortunate side effect of prohibition is that in attempting to enforce it, the powers that be are providing free advertising for the suppliers. And those suppliers have very vigorous / devious marketing techniques, which turn curious or recreational users into addicts in a remarkably short time. The countries that regard the problems surrounding addictions & substance mis-use as a matter of social & health problems deal with them as such which removes the criminality of the situation for the individual users, leaving the police to put all their efforts into enforcing the collapse of the illicit market. The health services don't advertise or advocate the use of any substances but put the emphasis on treatment so that problematic users can & do move towards a stable way of live which in turn means that they can become usefull members of society. You only need to watch the TV for an hour to see one of the most dangerous but legal substances advertised. Not only in the commercial breaks, in nearly every soap opera I can think of most of the plot revolves around people drinking alcohol in the " Queen Vic " , " Rovers Return " & the one in Emmerdale. The " Wolfpack " or something. Not that I follow any of them, may I add , but do occassionaly have to endure them if the missies is in. Honest !! The Government need to take control of the trade otherwise the numbers of problematic users will continue to increase & the damage done to society will cost us more & more as it snowballs. They need to revise the 1971 Act as a matter of urgency, go back to the days of Rolleston model of treatment when the UK's approach to treatment was considered to be the best in the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Para Handy Posted August 16, 2011 Report Share Posted August 16, 2011 I do love a bit of good justice! http://200weeks.police999.com/ Drug addict Gavin Raine, 38 from Sutherland got a bit of what’s coming to him recently when he mugged a woman for her handbag. He pushed a 51-year-old woman from behind and snatched her bag before running off. A man who saw the attack gave chase. Raine tried to jump over a fence but ended up impaling his right honourable member on the fence. His lawyer later said in court that the injury to his groin was “truly shocking and required substantial repair in hospital the next dayâ€, which is where Raine was arrested following his escape from the fence. He was jailed for 20 months. Am I the only one hoping the fence was particularly rusty? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OP8S Posted August 16, 2011 Report Share Posted August 16, 2011 No you're certainly not. Justice should be done to those that assualt any person whether they are vulnerable or not. I suspect that the guilty culprit would not have carried out this viscous & nasty crime if he was being treated by a medical professional. Since the 1971 mis-use of drugs act where the Rolleston model of treatment was abolished the number of addicts has risen every year. So instead of people that are drug-dependant being given a legal prescription from a GP under tight regulations the matter has been handed over to criminal gangs & the Government have absolutely no control over the situation & the constant rise in petty crimes committed daily by these addicts. I personally know some people that are in receipt of these prescriptions that were given to them pre- 1971, not one of them has ever committed a criminal offence since. Instead they have started their own business's, done university degrees & become valuable members of their communities. The cost of prescribing them the medication required is tiny compared with the money spent on policing the current situation. Quite a few are older than the lady that was mugged. If we are to really look into the problems that drugs ( including alcohol ) are contributing to society. Then the only answer is to return to the days of the Rolleston model which is in many ways what the Swiss have done. With very successful recovery rates, in the years 2010-2011 60% of addicts have come off their prescriptions without any help from privately run " charitable " organisations. I don't think that many if any at all of DSPs can claim such success rates.Our Government chooses to ignore the success's of other countries though, when will they acknowledge them ? When we have 500,000 problematic drug users out commiting crimes on a daily basis to feed their habits !? With these medical problems being put out to tender to so-called charitable organisations maybe they want the number of addicts to increase. In effect they have just created another care industry, with DSPs making vast amounts of money at the same time as creating employment. You only need to look a bit deeper into the situations that surround drug use to see that there is money to be made out of these addicts, hoooked on poor quality substances supplied by worldwide criminal organisations, who are in control of one of the biggest economies in the world. If only Justice would prevail Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Para Handy Posted August 17, 2011 Report Share Posted August 17, 2011 I quite agree with you OP8S when it comes to alcohol! Haven driving around drunks as a taxi driver for 25 years. Alcohol should be up there with Heroin. I would ban alcohol tomorrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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