[Archived] Drugs

[American]

Watch out, you might create more superior countries to yours like Australia.

[Napoleon]

.........as long as they didn't inhale eh?

355029[/snapback]

Haha it's hilarious when politicians bring out that old line. Reminds me of the politician on "The Day Today" saying "yes I have taken ecstasy but i certainly didn't swallow it".

[pg]

blue phil - out of interest do you regard Asian countries such as Thailand and Singapore as countries that have implemented the 'harsh system'?

[andy82]

The first paragraph is irrelevant if we're considering the legalisation of all drugs - nobody is disputing that there are differing levels of harmful substances .

    The second paragraph (edited) is just plain ridiculous . What would you prefer your kids to take on a night out , a few cigs and a couple of pints of bitter , or heroin and crack - however they are packaged and put into the body ? Making something socially acceptable doen't make it safe - hence your point about alcohol.

    Your third paragraph is just plain naive , youthful wishful thinking . Hard drugs are hard drugs however they are packaged and ingested . If they're not having the desired effect then the "consumer" will find some that are - that's what they want FFS . If the Gov't water the package down (call it making drugs purer or safer , whatever ...) they'll turn back to illegal supplies .

    As for your point that too much of the present gear is "sub-standard" - full of brick dust as you put it - well , that's not in the pushers interests (even they have to adhere to market principles and keep the customer satisfied ) The implication also there is that somehow if the Gov't gets involved the consumer will be able to take hard drugs , get a sufficient kick out of it as they do at present , but yet suffer no serious long or short term damage . Naive to the point of stupidity ....

  There may be an argument to make soft drugs more readily available but no sensible adult who gives a damn for impressionable kids should extend that to the hard stuff simply because the government hasn't the resolve or guts to tackle the present problem .  Kids should be educated and protected not have their own Gov't collude into making them drug induced wasters. What next - a bill to encourage binge drinking ......

354634[/snapback]

How am i being naive to the point of stupidity? The problem is that all the 'won't somebody think of the children' brigade like yourself will not listen to anyone who has experience in the matter. The fact is, no-one wants to jack up in a dodgy back alley next to some old bins, no matter who or what they are.

Personally as someone that uses drugs the ideal route would be decriminalisation. Drugs would then be more readily available, and at their cheapest.

As mentioned, alcohol is not safe. Would i prefer my kids to be out drinking and smoking or taking drugs? I know the last place i would want to see them is falling out of a 'fun pub' at midnight after 15 pints of stella - and wheras i don't have any mates that do this sorta thing, i do know a few that blaze crack now and again, with no obvious addiction or side effects.

Do you know how much nutmeg it takes to kill someone, btw? You would be shocked - and you keep that in a cupboard your kids can get to....

[Flopsy]

Andy could I just remind you that drugs are illegal and also turn most people who use them into compleate tools, not neccesarily violent or dangerous, but tools non the less.

[colin]

..... we should export all our prisoners to somewhere where it is cheaper to keep em.... like Western Sahara, Mongolia etc would all welcome our money and I'm sure with a little help from our army could adequately cope with our jailbirds. 

355084[/snapback]

You bleeding-heart liberals make me sick. (Blaaaaaggghh)

You want to send criminals on some kind of "luxury outward-bound" adventure course in sunny foreign places at the taxpayers' expense? With the Army to look after them? The Army probably has better things to do right now than look after a bunch of criminals and teach them to build rafts, have "bonding sessions," and strip an AK 47 within 60 seconds. I suppose the next thing you are going to suggest that there is a "group hug" at the end of the day.

Political correctness gone mad. I really don't know what this country is coming to.

Lock the blighters up for 23 hours a day in their cells, that's what I say.

[philipl]

Comment in the bleeding heart liberal Murdoch flagship (aka The Sunday Times):

"Blair and the boy David bring us the politics of cowardice

Simon Jenkins

"Of course David Cameron should have said whether he has used illegal drugs. The Daily Mail and the BBC were right to ask him. He should have answered. The view of Cameron’s friends, that standing as leader of the Conservative party should confer immunity from the criminal law, is absurd.

"The 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act embodies Burke’s dictum that bad laws are the worst tyranny. The act is so useless as to constitute a major threat to social order. All drugs are in some degree harmful and should therefore be properly regulated by government, as are nicotine and alcohol. In Britain they are not. They circulate uncontrolled in pubs, clubs, colleges, schools, police stations, even prisons. They fuel a third of all property crime. For many normal families they threaten their one brush with criminality. Yet MPs lack the guts to abolish the act and bring drugs within reach of statutory regulation.

"Now a Tory leadership contender feels unable to say whether he has broken this stupid law. I am sure he would unashamedly protest his innocence of fraud, rape, violent assault or treason. The use of a class A drug in Britain is, by order of both Conservative and Labour governments, an equally serious criminal offence. Some 30,000 people are in prison as a result of the drug laws. Why should senior politicians be exempt by virtue of the past tense? Is criminality to be a matter of dates?

"Cameron and his aides protest that drug taking is “a strictly private matter”. Really? Opinion polls suggest that a majority of British citizens take that view, but unfortunately that does not constitute a majority of MPs, least of all Conservative ones. Cameron may have favoured last year’s reclassification of cannabis, but that is trivial. Reform of the 1971 act is now critical to combating the anarchy that the rampant market in drugs has brought to Britain’s towns and cities. Both parties treat it as taboo.

"Last week Cameron was given a golden opportunity to break the taboo and win the sympathy of millions of voters, young and old. If he had broken the law he could have said it was a daft law that was wrecking lives less fortunate than his own, and pledged himself to repeal it. Where the state has intruded too far into the private domain, he would drive it out. He would curb the drugs market and tackle addiction other than through imprisonment. In the event he seemed more concerned with the views of backwoodsmen on Planet Suburb. In short, he funked it."

[philipl]

Drugs use in Ilkeston or any small town in Britain.

Professor Parker estimates that the Police estimate of 240,000 who have used crack cocaine to be an under-estimate by 50%.

To the lock 'em up brigade, there are around 100,000 places in British jails. If just one type of Class A substance has five times that number of abusers, what are you going to do?

[blue phil]

Quite easy , Phlplpl - you increase the deterrence factor . No need for expensive cushy prison cells for the major drug suppliers - they'd be swinging from a rope . A twenty year sentence for the lower range suppliers in an inexpensive basic prison would soon put off many from entering the game . For the small time user ; well six months in a camp going cold turkey might do the trick rather than having a few lessons with a poncy drug counsellor in one of your cushy prisons .....

Get the drift ...?

[Claytons Left Boot]

No need for expensive cushy prison cells for the major drug suppliers - they'd be swinging from a rope .

358503[/snapback]

Spot on! Birch them to within an inch of their lives to start with, then hang them.

[blue phil]

No no , spare the birch ; I'm a tree hugger ....

[philipl]

So much cocaine is being used in London that traces of the white powdered narcotic can be detected in the River Thames, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper said.

Citing scientific research which it had commissioned, it said an estimated two kilogrammes of cocaine, or 80,000 lines, spill into the river every day after it has passed through users' bodies and sewage treatment plants.

It extrapolated that 150,000 lines of the illegal drug are snorted in the British capital every day, or 15 times higher than the official figure given by the Home Office.

I am not posting this because I approve of cocaine usage- far from it. But if a line costs £20 on the black market, that is £1bn a year getting into the hands of criminals just on cocaine alone.

Ending drugs prohibition is the only solution.

[LeChuck]

How am i being naive to the point of stupidity? The problem is that all the 'won't somebody think of the children' brigade like yourself will not listen to anyone who has experience in the matter. The fact is, no-one wants to jack up in a dodgy back alley next to some old bins, no matter who or what they are.

Personally as someone that uses drugs the ideal route would be decriminalisation. Drugs would then be more readily available, and at their cheapest.

As mentioned, alcohol is not safe. Would i prefer my kids to be out drinking and smoking or taking drugs? I know the last place i would want to see them is falling out of a 'fun pub' at midnight after 15 pints of stella - and wheras i don't have any mates that do this sorta thing, i do know a few that blaze crack now and again, with no obvious addiction or side effects.

Do you know how much nutmeg it takes to kill someone, btw? You would be shocked - and you keep that in a cupboard your kids can get to....

355158[/snapback]

So...your argument boiled down to two points; 1) Nutmeg can kill people. 2) You want cheaper drugs.

If 'the last place' you would want to see your kid is falling out of a pub blind drunk then your experience of drugs is obviously virtually none-existant. I'm not actually against decriminalisation of some drugs (note: some), but advocating the legality of crack because you think your mates can handle it is pathetic.

Edited November 8, 2005 by LeChuck

[American]

Philip, I've also heard that traces of cocaine can be found on most larger denomination US bills.

[Flopsy]

No no , spare the birch ; I'm a tree hugger ....

358515[/snapback]

You pinko liberal you

[philipl]

Philip, I've also heard that traces of cocaine can be found on most larger denomination US bills.

359259[/snapback]

That's true- they deliberately chose that dirty shade of green so you cannot see the snot round the edges.

[Dan Furness]

So much cocaine is being used in London that traces of the white powdered narcotic can be detected in the River Thames, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper said.

Citing scientific research which it had commissioned, it said an estimated two kilogrammes of cocaine, or 80,000 lines, spill into the river every day after it has passed through users' bodies and sewage treatment plants.

It extrapolated that 150,000 lines of the illegal drug are snorted in the British capital every day, or 15 times higher than the official figure given by the Home Office.

I am not posting this because I approve of cocaine usage- far from it. But if a line costs £20 on the black market, that is £1bn a year getting into the hands of criminals just on cocaine alone.

Ending drugs prohibition is the only solution.

359229[/snapback]

£20 a line? AS IF

[philipl]

Not having any need to know the price of this stuff, I simply go by what I read in the papers.

[1864roverite]

There is a very simple solution to drugs

shoot every drug addict and it eradicates a number of problems.

the pushers lose out on money

big time criminals dont cash in

crime figures plummet by 85%

some may say harsh, but it aint really is it, its a simple equation

no druggies = very little crime

no druggies = no big dollars being made on the drugs scene

[Flopsy]

Well its logical.

Should we shoot all Alcoholics who are as destructive as any other type of addict?

[1864roverite]

The difference being that alcoholics are considered as having an illness.

Druggies are a different type of person, they HAVE to commit crime fo fund their habits, generally an alcholic will not go on serious crime sprees to fund their addiction.

for a tenner a druggie gets a bag of heroin, or for 15-20 a rock of crack, it will last them between 1 or 2 hrs then they will have to go out and get some money for another fix, then another and so on.

for a tenner an alcoholic will get plenty of lager,cider or wine, they fall asleep for a few hours then get back on the drink.

They wont have the viscious circle that a druggie has, and are more tahn tolerable in todays society.

druggies are the most intolerable of all scum thats the difference

[blue phil]

You pinko liberal you

359261[/snapback]

I'll be applying to be a mod next .....

[LeChuck]

The difference being that alcoholics are considered as having an illness.

Druggies are a different type of person, they HAVE to commit crime fo fund their habits, generally an alcholic will not go on serious crime sprees to fund their addiction.

359294[/snapback]

Whoa...that is utter crap, seriously...not a word of sense.

Do all football fans participate in hooliganism? You should know better than to generalise like that. It's very much a case of the minority giving the majority a bad name, and that's why it's such a hard problem to elimate.

Take football; you can't ban people from watching football because a few people want to fight. By the same token you can't treat all drug users as thieves because that simply isn't the case.

[Flopsy]

I'll be applying to be a mod next .....

359309[/snapback]

ooo look another attempt at a little sly dig. You know it would be funny the way you have to resort to little insults and “sly” digs but it really shows your lack of self esteem with anyone you perceive as a threat or who you think are superior to you. Its almost as if you try and belittle people to make you feel slightly better about yourself. Tell me were you bullied as a child? Was your father or mother distant? Did the inability to pass a certain test at a certain age or some tiny little slight at a young and tender age completely destroy your self confidence and therefore you have to put up a front of bluster to hide the fact that you are crying inside.

Or is that you have no sense of humour?

[blue phil]

I am not posting this because I approve of cocaine usage- far from it. But if a line costs £20 on the black market, that is £1bn a year getting into the hands of criminals just on cocaine alone.

Ending drugs prohibition is the only solution.

359229[/snapback]

No it isn't the "only" solution - it's just the one you prefer .

Ending drugs prohibition would mean the Gov't actively participating in damaging their own citizens whose health they should really be trying to improve ...

If a line of coke costs £20 now it would inevitably cost substantially more if sold by the Gov't , thus removing any finncial incentive . How many people would rather buy "dodgy" imported fags and booze than pay the Gov'ts overtaxed version ? Also let's not stick our heads in the clouds and pretend that the substances would be any safer if sold by the Gov't - they wouldn't . If diluted in any way the punters would simply go back to the stuff provided by the criminals .

As always , Philip , your approach is half baked , head in the sand nonsense that would only lead to yet another lowering of standards in society .The most logical solution is to try a hard line approach to the problems of drug abuse . Stick the dealers in prison for a very long time ; execute the main dealers ; provide real education to youngsters . Maybe if you had first hand knowledge of what drugs can do to people you wouldn't come up with the non-sensical idea that they should be more readily available and dished out with the approval of the Government . What next - legalise burglary because the police and courts are having a bit of a problem there ...?