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Thread: Drugs!

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Drugs!

    Again in the news someone has said the war on drugs isn't working:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24320717

    I just can't fathom how at a time where we're cutting so many things, we don't look at how much money we could save by helping drug addicts, rather than imprisoning them.
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    Hexus.Jet TeePee's Avatar
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    Re: Drugs!

    Look how much power the government has managed to claim in the name of drug enforcement. Why would they ever want to give up that power?

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    Re: Drugs!

    Resigning 'to spend more time with his family' in 3-2...

    I agree with him though, as does the evidence. Prohibition doesn't work it just creates men like Al Capone and puts lots of people into our already overcrowded prisons who don't need to be there.

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    Re: Drugs!

    Governments are unlikely to ever admit they're partly creating a problem (gangs, poisoning people due to the only suppliers being criminals so junk being cut with drugs, needle sharing etc). Politicos don't like grey areas morally, never mind the basic issue of whether it is right for a third party to control what I decide to put in my body.

    I don't buy the whole Russell Brand treat it like a sickness thing though. Get addicted, you're an idiot and a drain on everyone else, but not a criminal.
    Last edited by wasabi; 29-09-2013 at 10:44 PM. Reason: typo

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    Re: Drugs!

    Quote Originally Posted by wasabi View Post
    Get addicted, you're an idiot and a drain on everyone else, but not a criminal.
    As long as you don't commit crimes to feed your addiction..

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    Moosing about! CAT-THE-FIFTH's Avatar
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    Re: Drugs!

    Quote Originally Posted by wasabi View Post
    Get addicted, you're an idiot and a drain on everyone else
    Unfortunately with a number of narcotics,the effects are not only psychological but biochemical too.

    This is why simple decriminalisation won't work on its own. There needs to be education and perhaps development of alternatives which are engineered to be not so addictive.

    The addictive nature is advantageous to criminals as it means more business.

    Quote Originally Posted by TooNice View Post
    As long as you don't commit crimes to feed your addiction..
    Or expect the taxpayer to fund your habit.

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    Re: Drugs!

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    Or expect the taxpayer to fund your habit.
    Well that side is normally easy.

    Take cigs. They cause immense health damage. They are just absolutely awful, and they don't even get you high.

    Yet people spend vast amounts of dosh on em, only to expect the NHS to pick up the tab for their treatment.

    My point is, 'paying for the habbit' when it comes to buying the substance can be very cheap. Paying for the effects of it is expensive.
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    Re: Drugs!

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus View Post
    Well that side is normally easy.

    Take cigs. They cause immense health damage. They are just absolutely awful, and they don't even get you high.

    Yet people spend vast amounts of dosh on em, only to expect the NHS to pick up the tab for their treatment.

    My point is, 'paying for the habbit' when it comes to buying the substance can be very cheap. Paying for the effects of it is expensive.
    Yet many narcotics affect people at a cellular level(its not just a psychological addiction),and this is really good if you want to keep selling your narcotics. However,the thing is it leads to people needing to take the narcotic just to function which is a drain on them and the taxpayer. It does not give them any pleasure anyway after prolonged used.

    Its far better that alternatives are introduced which don't have as intense addictive affects, which is the main reason we have the problems at the moment. Addiction is great for sales,and thats it. It does not contribute towards gaining any happiness.

    We have a far better understanding of structural chemistry,biochemistry and cell biology to develop safer alternatives. This is the 21st century not 1865.

    Plus its bad enough with alcohol and cigarettes,and yet smoking is decreasing now due to education.
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 29-09-2013 at 08:27 PM.

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    Re: Drugs!

    It is ridiculous. I wonder how long it will take before the evidence that they are completely wrong over whelms their god complex. We need to get to a point where failure is accepted as a normal part of doing anything so that it becomes less difficult for people to admit being wrong and easier for us to correct our mistakes.

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    Re: Drugs!

    Legalizing and taxing may be a good solution. Just as the average smoker pays more in ta for cigarettes than they cause the NHS to spend on them, so it could be with other drugs.

    Although, following that logic, there should be a 'fat tax' too...

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    Re: Drugs!

    An advantage of legalising is that people get the pure substance. A lot of banned drugs aren't that dangerous by themselves but people end up in hospital because of the crap they're cut with. Legal options which are quality checked don't have this problem.

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    Re: Drugs!

    @ TeePee: There kind of is a "fat tax", the more you eat the more you pay in VAT. People aren't getting fat on vegetables so they are definitely paying more VAT than healthy people.

    As Butcher says there are loads of problems associated with drugs that result from their bad quality. Legalizing them could help reduce these problems significantly. There is also the added benefit that you'd be getting these drugs from "reputable" places rather than back alleys so there is less danger of being coerced into other bad activities while procuring drugs.

    There are a whole host of negatives that will be significantly reduced if drugs were legalized and regulated but that is a small part of the benefit our society would experience, before drugs became taboo in America there were loads of very promising studies being conducted on how drugs affect our creativity and how they could help alleviate mental illnesses. All these developments stopped abruptly when drugs were banned and with the taboo broken we could possibly benefit from some of the positive effects these drugs have.

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    Re: Drugs!

    Always worth remembering with the tax and spend on treatment idea that's it's a bill we're already paying. People always seem to frame argument as if it would add a new healthcare cost. If people going to do it either way(which they are, let's get over it) I'd rather they did it as safely as possible and pay to play as it were. We might even get a drop in healthcare costs from their being less violence and tainted drugs. The combination of that, the reduced policing and prison resources (approx £16 billion total) with the £2-10 billion in taxes would knock out 5-20% of the deficit. Probably add up to more than all the cuts combined have had on the deficit so far. We're throwing good money after bad to fight and clean up after it and getting nowhere.

    There's a thriving drug auction site, they do home delivery FFS, how much evidence do we need that it's a failed policy? An opinion shared by the former heads of the CPS and MI5 too.

    You can even keep tutting if you want. Everyone wins.

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    Re: Drugs!

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    yet smoking is decreasing now due to education.
    Don't forget incredibly high taxes and a wide array of bans on smoking in public places.

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    Re: Drugs!

    Quote Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH View Post
    ....

    Or expect the taxpayer to fund your habit.
    Agreed.

    But (you knew there'd be one, didn't you ).... if funding 'your habit' ends up being cheaper than funding the results of the current system, like, oh, the costs of policing drugs, and perhaps worse, the costs of funding the crime wave it leads to, then it may well actually be a lot cheaper for the taxpayer to fund the habit than to not fund it.

    And that's without factoring in that if treatment can get people off drugs, or at least a portion of them off, then it's short-term funding of the habit, or long-term funding of the anti-drug policing and the burglaries, etc, that result.


    The drug question is, of course, about more than funding, but on that issue, my guess us that funding the habit costs less than funding policing, health care for overdoses, impact of burglaries, etc, higher insurance premiums because of the burglaries, and so on.

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    Re: Drugs!

    Quote Originally Posted by Noxvayl View Post
    @ TeePee: There kind of is a "fat tax", the more you eat the more you pay in VAT. People aren't getting fat on vegetables so they are definitely paying more VAT than healthy people.
    Most food is zero rated or exempt for VAT purposes. There are some exceptions - some sweets and biscuits, and anything you buy in a restaurant.

    Quote Originally Posted by HMRC
    Food and drink, animals, animal feed, plants and seeds

    Food and drink for human consumption is, in general, zero-rated but many items are standard-rated, including alcoholic drinks, confectionery, crisps and savoury snacks, hot food, sports drinks, supplies of food made in the course of catering including hot takeaways, ice cream, soft drinks and mineral water.

    Because certain food and drink is zero-rated, so too are certain animals and animal feeds, and plants and seeds - if the animal or plant in question produces food that is normally used for human consumption.
    http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/forms-rat...services.htm#1

    Then again looking at the items that do have VAT on them, perhaps it is a 'fat' tax after all.
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