BlindMelon - mj def does affect you after 21 - its psychoactive, it can still cause depression, etc etc
The main problem is that the people for whom drug taking is a problem generally dont care about the legality of it, there are almost always ways of obtaining drugs and getting them through security. Once you have the 'need' to get high 'but its illegal' never really enters into it...
Meh, legalise them all and let the chaos ensue! When all the world has gone to pot, all the people who were against it can go "See! Told you so!" then we can ban them all again and everyone will shut up.Originally Posted by jeoO
Well that's my theory anyway.
If they legalised the drugs, and the gorvenment produced them and sold them in shops. It would save alot of police time. There would be no crime, there would be no deaths and they would be making a hell of a lot of money. If there was deaths they could pinpoint the problem of where it happened.
there ya go
Vodka
whoever mentioned cannabis causing depression is ill informed
recent studies have showed cannabis as used medicinally can help keep depression at bay
also... take for example holland, where cannabis related mental health problems are the lowest internationally, and yet they have a coffeeshop selling cannabis in every major city and pretty much anywhere where theres a market for it. draw your own conclusions
And we would all live happily ever after, ah bless.
But seriously, save the police a lot of time? Hmm. Are all the Heroin addicts (and all the new ones) going to suddenly get nice jobs and be able to buy their drugs? Or is it more likely they will resort to crime to fund there addiction, regardless of who they actually pay for them?
And should the government really be allowed full reign to profit from it's citizens weakness and addictions?
Would there there really be less deaths? Some (the black market will always be there) supplies of heroin etc might become cleaner, but the with massive increase in users could mean an increase. It's not just about a drug being clean, it's about the way it's taken, the kinds of lives serious addicts lead and the other factors such as driving while under the influence.
The complete legalisation of all hard drugs would work if all of the following criteria would be met;
A) Virtually no more people will start taking them than they do now.
B) All the new drugs were given away free or for penny's (to stop the black market + stop crime).
If you think either of those could happen, you are living in cloud cuckoo land.
autopilot your argument is not really helpful, to lay down criteria (which you have not made any attempt to prove neccesary) and call them impossible, where is the value in that ?
studies have shown that heroin addicts can live perfectly happy and functional lives when supplied with regular amounts of heroin. there exist people who are addicted to heroin but do live relatively 'normal' lives.
in the most case it is the black market and criminal environment in which these people have no choice but to operate which creates problems and causes the kinds of phenomena we typically associate with 'drug addicts'
one of the things we have introduced, needle exchanges, shows to have had a big impact, preventing a number of problems associated with needles and allowing us to keep track and record who the addicts are, so we as a society are aware of them.
it is strange how the more progressive attitudes yield more and more positive results. the draconian 'war on drugs' we are currently living in is neither realistic or winnable.
holland is a great place to look at for examples of the results (and failures) of various progressive trials and inititiatives. its quite amazing what an open minded attitude to problems can yield
ill informed? Try looking here:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2005.07.012 and http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2006.05.018
There is some link between depression and mj use - cause or effect is still debated, however.
Add that to personal experience of friends who have become depressed after excessive cannabis abuse and the fact that any psychoactive can cause depression (as well as releive depression - look at the side effects of prozac 'may cause depression'). I don't mind if you disagree, just don't call me ill informed
Marijuana has obvious medical benefits for certain conditions, I was merely objecting to the statement that after 21 THC/mj would not affect your brain...
Please provide a link to those studies.
That said if you look hard enough, you will find a study showed that aliens exist.
My partner is an ex-smoker and has been a senior mental heath nurse for many years. There has been a massive increase in cannabis related mental heath issues over the last few years. Its a major problem, particularly in Bi Polar's, manic depressives and schizophrenia. The mental wards all full of people with problems caused or at least severely exasperated by it. It may be just acting as a trigger for many people, but its starting to show signs of actually causing problems in itself that would have never appeared at all. She works with these people day in, day out.
But yes, it really can help people a great deal (including some mental heath issues) for sure and people who could benefit from it should be given the chance to use it. But it's not a legalisation issue, it's a medical one.
Everyone has there one take on this issue. Many based what they want to be true. Hell, i would love it if coke were good for you. But it's just not, the whole "legalize da herb man!" just seems to be a rebellious catchphrase for stoned teenagers, not a serious and well informed view.
and "Legalize da herb for certain conditions on a controlled prescription basis" doesn't quite have the same ring, especially as the average stoner would get lost and lose interest half way through that sentence and go on a hunt for a bowl of Crunchy Nut
I myself probably fit into the "young middle class recreatoinal" pigeon hole and theres no way I'd support a full lift on prohibition. I do however believe that the current laws regarding cannabis are a joke. The scaremongering that goes on with cannabis in the press is ridiculous and its fueled by a government and a police force that actually have no idea what they are talking about.
The "cannabis use increase's the likelyhood of mental illness" argument is the one most often used within the press and government statements is unfounded, it has been proven that people that are already genetically succeptable to mental illness shouldn't use cannabis as it could possibly speed up the symptoms but even this has never been fully researched, and to be fair if someone is already succeptable to mental illness's I don't think they should be going down the pub every weekend and drinking 30 pints of stella, but then thats a nice, legal, taxable socially acceptable drug
If they spent a little bit more time reading some of the published research on cannaboid's and a little less time telling the press about a new breed of "super skunk" thats going to eat all their childrens brains then maybe they'd start to look at things in a different light.
First off, the medicinal use of cannabis in recent years has become more and more common, especially amongst sufferer's of M.S and Bipolar Disorder, theres also a large number of people that claim it helps ease severe depression or physical pain and level out the high's and lows they'd usually experience on any normal day.
Why should people who are using cannabis for medicinal purposes have to trek out and meet a dealer who's going to sell them low quality cannabis contaminated with christ knows what to try and raise the value, when they could be buying it off the government cheaper (even with taxation the price would lower) and more safely?
Recreational users also face similar problems, because cannabis has become big business due to prohibition drug dealers are doing whatever is neccasary in an attempt to make more money.
"Soap Bar" is by far the greatest example of this, it actually contains very little cannabis the substances used to bulk up the weight and value are shocking tbh used motor oil, plastic, vinyl, boot polish, diesel and rubber. If you buy 250 gram's of this on average there's only 10 grams of cannabis pollen.
Even bog standard cannabis buds are subject to contamination, often being sprinkled with caster sugar in an attempt to make them look better quality and hence increase the value.
If grown and regualted by the government cannabis would become far safer and cheaper for both medicinal and recreational users. I can't say that the black market for cannabis would disappear, it would be naive to think so, it would certainly suffer though. If you look towards alchohol and cigarette's a black market exists for those but its very small when compared to sales of the genuine articles.
But were is the value value to telling me something has no value, without being able to prove otherwise. I was putting a hypothetical point accross, thats all.
Anyway, if you read the read of my post you might understand why i put that across and explained my reasons. To me it's obvious
Again, i would like to see these studies you have read up on. (runs to google no doubt).
While it is possible for some people to functional normal lives, most could not. They would have to do it in secret too - who would employ a heroin addict? Try putting that on your CV
I agree it would help, but the black market will always be there. There is a black market in booze, stolen goods, just about everything. Why is the drug black market so different and willing to give up?
Agreed. We need more of this kind of decent thinking. But why is that a case for legalisation? Just because something is illegal, we should not treat addicts like second class citizens, that the whole point. We should also allow children access to condoms, does that mean we should make it legal for 8 year olds to have sex?
Of course you are absolutely right, the 'war on drugs' is as pointless as the 'war on terror'.
I am only saying that i believe strongly that just making all drugs 100% legal, even with a framework of legislation around it, would not work.
The real problem is the way we treat and educate addicts, it's a disaster what we are doing in this country. That need to change regardless of the legal situation and legalisation of heroin could hamper their treatment.
Last edited by autopilot; 20-11-2006 at 05:33 PM.
Equally you could say ban Alcohol (using the pub example), theres nothing worse than some ignorant git being sick outside your house or starting a fight.
I would say that if you look at the way the UK govt. handling its "drugs culture" is not the best. The reclassification of cannibis being the biggest farce as lots of "youths" round here thought it was legal to smoke it, own it, shout about it from the rooftops. They then get arrested wasting hours of police time while they just confiscate it, give him a stern talking to and send him on his way.
Now having been a member of a group of friends who regularly smoke cannabis on a daily basis (not me, them), I can firmly say that more problems have been caused by the illegal status of it than I think would have been caused if it was "legal".
i.e. people trying to get mugged by dealers, people thinking other people have given dodgy deals etc etc.
There is a lot of other things that go on in the illegal trade of cannabis, and it isn't a simply the guy on the street corner selling it. You've got to think where its manufactured/grown the people working there, their working conditions etc.
If you legalise the growth of cannabis for personal use, you'd eliminate the illegal trade immediately, and the street value would decrease dramatically. This would make it a hard business for dealers to turn into profit.
Police and CSO could then arrest dealers/users of more "harmful" (not saying cannibis isn't harmful, its just not exactly Smack or Crack) drugs.
You'd also eliminate the backwards trail of the drug trade i.e. people wouldn't be buying it from abroad or the UK, this would cut down on illegal immigrants working in certain countries on "drug farms".
I really could go on for hours about this as one of my friends did his dissitation on "The links between Cannabis an criminology" and I spent hours, if not days, debating about it.
Tom Scott,
Scancom.co.uk/HEXUS Liason
I agree. It's crazy and IMO offensive to suggest that drug use is ok for a certain 'class of people' but not others, or that there is significant difficulty obtaining or judicial disincentive to keep drugs out of the hands of anyone who wants them, especially the poorest.
All this talk of legalisation resulting in zombie hordes of addicts is total guff. It's similar to prostitution; many places in the UK have 'tolerance zones' and in other countries prostitutes must be registered, licensed (taxed) and health checked. Does this result in children aspiring to be prostitutes when they grow up, more people using prostitutes, or open humping in the street? Of course not, all it does is remove the criminality and exploitation to the benefit of all. Even more so for drugs; unless you think criminals should be trusted with quality control, get to decide who they sell to and then not pay anything towards the costs of drug programmes or policing.
Well said.
Although i can tell there are currently a large number of people on my GF's ward suffering from cannibis induced psychosis.
The problem is that it's an contentious issue that attracts extreme opinions. On one side you have the "drugs are bad" ill-informed morons who think all drugs are satans weapon. The you have the crazy faction who want all drugs completely legal. Both side have their own agenda and there are many studies that appear to back up both view points.
You just cant lump cannibis with class A's.
Who exactly said that? Thats absurd.
Again, who said that too? It's very unlikely it would get that extreme. And personally, i think prostitution is a different kettle of fish and should be legalised. The success they have had in New Zealand proves that too, however there are still plenty of illegal brothels.
I'm certainly not saying thats in anyway likely. That question i am posing is, would they be a significant increase in drug use if all drugs were completely legalised, and would that outway the benefits?
If the answer is no, then they should be legalised. But based on my own experience, i honestly think it would.
Very interesting debate though
Last edited by autopilot; 20-11-2006 at 06:11 PM.
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