[Archived] Drugs

[Gareth]

Heroin clinics cut crime, reduce use and stabilise users' lives and families

Trial leader Professor John Strang, of the National Addiction Centre, based at London's Institute of Psychiatry, told BBC News that about 40% of users had "quit their involvement with the street scene completely".

"Of those who have continued, which obviously is a disappointment, it goes down from every day to about four days per month," he added.

"Their crimes, for example, have gone from 40 a month to perhaps four crimes per month.

"The reduction in crime is not perfect but is a great deal better for them and crucially a great deal better for society."

Many were leading much more stable lives and were enjoying better family relationships because they were no longer in and out of prison...

Similar heroin injection schemes in Holland and Switzerland have reported some users turning away from crime.

Speaks for itself... heroin clinics work.

[philipl]

The illicit drugs industry

[Gareth]

The illicit drugs industry

Wonder how much tax money would be obtained if prohibition wasn't around?

[blue phil]

.......and how much tax money would be spent both distributing free or massively subsidised drugs to the losers who use them - the only way that legalising drugs could possibly work without simply swapping one supplier from another ? And how much tax money would be spent in then providing hostels , hospitals , cures and treatment to try and get them off it !

Time to get real boys ; the tax payers are sick to death of paying out for wasters to sponge at their expense . Asking them to pay for governments to help druggies who they would be partly responsible for getting on the stuff in the first place is just plain daft .

Have any of you tried to reconcile your call to legalise drugs with the goverment's current hard line on smoking and obesity for example ? It's just plain nonsense .

Those two points I've raised before . I've yet to receive anything approaching a sensible counter argument .

Edited November 21, 2007 by blue phil

[philipl]

Very simple, smoking and obesity kill and injure far more people every year than drugs do. So does alcohol.

That was the point of my post that started this thread.

Lifting the drugs prohibition does not equate to a psychodelic free for all. Drugs would be heavilly taxed and subject to extensive controls.

But I'd rather have the crooks of HMRC benefitting than mafia gangs. I'd rather have the potential damage done to the people who want to muck around with that stuff reduced by making sure of quality, quantity and have the infrastructure to get them off it when they have the will to do so. I'd rather price this stuff so the abusers and users do not have to turn to crime driving up the prison population unnecessarily by about a third and insurance premiums by between 10% and 15%.

Above all I want an end to the ridiculous head in the sand hypocricy about halucogens which have been used by humanity since the dawn of time.

[American]

I'm with you on the basic point Phillip, but you are flawed in the belief that smoking is more harmful than drugs. Pot has more cancerous chemicals in it than tobacco does.

I agree that it is hypocritical, which is why neither should be banned. If people want to harm themselves, then let them, but also allow my employer to refuse them health insurance or make them pay a higher premium.

[colin]

I'm with you on the basic point Phillip, but you are flawed in the belief that smoking is more harmful than drugs. Pot has more cancerous chemicals in it than tobacco does.

American,

Can't argue with that, but I'd just like to point out that most people who smoke cannabis

(a) mix it with tobacco

( don't have a 20 a day spliff habit.

Or at least I've been lead to beleive this is correct.

Edited November 22, 2007 by colin

[philipl]

Agreed Colin- quite a few of my tobacco smoking friends were lead to toibacco dependence through cannabis experimentation.

Both are bad things in my book.

4.5m Europeans used cocaine last year. I have never met a working class cocaine user. I have been in top level financing meetings and seen the banker opposite me snorting cocaine whilst effecting a cold though and could name several lawyers who have dabbled in hard drugs.

The reality is that these upper strata of society habitual drugs users have their networks and protection which inturn no doubt reaches down into criminal gangs, mafia and the horrid exploitation which flows from that.

Drugs prohibition is systematically corrupting society and undermining everything decent people hold dear.

There is a touching other worldly naivety in the law and order, ban it, tough sentences brigade. More than a few judges, police officers, customs officials, doctors etc will look back to rebellious pasts and not so rebellious louche here and nows when dealing with drugs offenders.

[philipl]

Another compelling reason for ending drug prohibition.

In the USA there is evidence that more youngsters buy illegal but unregulated marajuana than legal but regulated tobacco.

[blue phil]

I have never met a working class cocaine user.

I think that says it all about how distant you are from the real world ........

Go into any town center pub in the land and you could find evidence of such use .

Your trouble is , Philip , your theories are all from text books and reports - all written from people like yourself who don't see the reality at the sharp end .

You stick to your top level high finance meetings and stop trying to impose your idiotic social experiments on the rest of us .

Edited December 27, 2007 by blue phil

[OhmiBRFC]

I think that says it all about how distant you are from the real world ........

Go into any town center pub in the land and you could find evidence of such use .

Your trouble is , Philip , your theories are all from text books and reports - all written from people like yourself who don't see the reality at the sharp end .

You stick to your top level high finance meetings and stop trying to impose your idiotic social experiments on the rest of us .

@ Never meeting a working class Cocaine user

Edited December 27, 2007 by OhmiBRFC

[philipl]

Cocaine snorting Swiss bankers and London lawyers are as much a part of the real world as cocaine snorting kids from Shad. Both are potentially wrecking their lives.

The point at issue is that criminalising drugs has not stopped drug use from being endemic across all strata of society. It would be better legal and regulated than illegal and unregulated.

[blue phil]

So if society has a problem then we should legalise it .....great idea !

Muggings and burglaries anyone .....

[OhmiBRFC]

Cocaine snorting Swiss bankers and London lawyers are as much a part of the real world as cocaine snorting kids from Shad. Both are potentially wrecking their lives.

The point at issue is that criminalising drugs has not stopped drug use from being endemic across all strata of society. It would be better legal and regulated than illegal and unregulated.

No1s disputing the fact that Swiss bankers and London lawyers are part of the real world, you said though you've never met anyone of working class that snorts cocaine which I just thought was laughable, walk round with blinkers do you?

[rebelmswar]

No1s disputing the fact that Swiss bankers and London lawyers are part of the real world, you said though you've never met anyone of working class that snorts cocaine which I just thought was laughable, walk round with blinkers do you?

You have to admit though that cocaine is very yuppie though.

[OhmiBRFC]

That is the common conception yes, but I also dont no any Doctors, Lawyers etc so I couldn't possibly comment on it. Just think he was being a tad naive in saying that he's never met anyone of working class background thats taken Cocaine, he was basically sayin that people of working class background done use Cocaine.

[philipl]

You imagined "sayin that people of working class background done use Cocaine" when I wasn't.

[blue phil]

Stop digging , Philip .........

You stick to the rarefied atmosphere of the London Lawyers and the Swiss Bankers ........(is that rhyming slang BTW ? )

[philipl]

digging in rarefied atmosphere?

particularly 100% of the world's population

extremist centrists I think is another recent contribution

Your posts maybe misguided and naive but there is always some entertainment value.

PS I think your mate drog was the one who wanted to sign Joey Barton. I had a post removed that would have reminded him but well done for having a go on that thread.

Edited December 28, 2007 by philipl

[blue phil]

So Drog wanted to sign Barton - I never knew ....still , he's entitled to his opinion ....

But ....what exactly has that got to do with this thread on drugs ?

Or have you given up on that after making such a complete fool of yourself .....

Cocaine and the working classes ? Swiss bankers and London lawyers ? .........the average five year old is more clued up about the real world than yourself

[Guest Dik Bleek]

I must say that I came into contact with more people who had used recreational drugs when I lived in England than I have in all the years I have lived in Holland!

[blue phil]

They must have all been Swiss bankers on holiday .....

[philipl]

Cocaine and the working classes ? Swiss bankers and London lawyers ? .........the average five year old is more clued up about the real world than yourself

Judging the by the tiny minority you find yourself in, you are the one less in touch with reality.

[blue phil]

Really ? You're about the only advocate of the legalisation of all drugs that I've ever come across . Are you that arrogant that you honestly think I'm in a tiny minority on this issue ?

You simply spout extremist nonsense - out of date and out of touch with reality

[thenodrog]

Philip..... You are being really naive and embarrassingly dated in your views! Cocaine is widely available in Blackburn AND to the best of my knowledge we don't have many swiss bankers in our town. Come to think about it 'working class' people are getting scarce too!

Edited December 30, 2007 by thenodrog