drugs

[jeoO]

what are your thoughts on the legalization of illegal drugs?

[MadduckUK]

which? all of them? that would be retarded.

[Agent]

A lot of the media has the attitude of "omg drugs bad", while entirely missing the facts / statistics of them out.

I would much rather legalise certain drugs and tax them, I think it would be far more beneficial in the long run.

[TheAnimus]

I think the problem too many people have with drugs is the effect they observe is only ever from one class of people. If you have truely nothing in your life, drugs do become it, regardless of if its weed or an opium.

Too much of the time, this debate is someone holding a splif with some che chavara rizzla saying that it never hurt anyone.

In short only mdma really has a chance of any sane goverment allowing to be legalised, and even then more research is saying prolonged use means no more ceritonin (and as anyone who has ever taken an e will tell you, the next day is a right off, you just cba to do anything, but a lot of people put this down to the fact they where out till 6am).

Too many people take the stance of i've taken x y and z, and i'm fine. Hardly a compelling argument.

[Merlin4458]

why would they need to be legalised... Its not a massive problem if they didnt. People wouldnt die, suffer or anything else. Its something that some people can enjoy, but there are other things people can do which are equally as fun. no need to legalise it tbh

[Clunk]

I cant see any need for legalisation, there will always be a black market for them, even if they were legalised.

I think that the only good thing that could come out of legalisation would be that the dosages would be measured and the quality of the drugs would probably be better.

[Merlin4458]

I cant see any need for legalisation, there will always be a black market for them, even if they were legalised.

I think that the only good thing that could come out of legalisation would be that the dosages would be measured and the quality of the drugs would probably be better.

wouldnt really be measured though in the real world. If people can get more for the money from that guy down the road they still will, even if its made of something different

[g8ina]

As a disabled person I have felt the benefit of "certain substances", but I am still in two minds about this.

On one hand we have documented evidence that "drugs are bad m'k", but on the other hand, cannabis has helped MS sufferers immensely with pain relief.

Thinking on, I suppose that cannabinoids could be released as a prescription drug under NHS control. We already have methadone being administered in pharmacies in the UK, so there is a good example of a class (?) drug already in service, but where to draw the line ? I dunno.

Cuppa tea anyone ?

[Clunk]

wouldnt really be measured though in the real world. If people can get more for the money from that guy down the road they still will, even if its made of something different

I think that is what i just said

[badass]

Hmmmm
If some drugs like cannabis were to be legalised it would take the crime out of the most popular drug in this country out, potentailly reducing an easy source of income for certain criminals that may use the money gained to fund worse illegal activities.
That would IMHO be a good thing, however I suspect they would make up for the shortfall easily with other crime.
I'm still for the legalisation of it. If nothing else, it'll provide the police with more time to deal with crime that actually has victims and will pave the way for better drug driving laws defining how much people are allowed to use and drive rather than just using opinion.

[JPreston]

...If people can get more for the money from that guy down the road they still will, even if its made of something different

Then why do I go to Tesco's to buy a bottle of vodka and willingly pay a big element of duty on top, instead of going to some guy down the road to buy vodka made from industrial methanol?

The three biggest industries in the world (in descending order) are 1) oil 2) weapons 3) illicit drugs. Drug production and trafficking represent a huge investment of human effort, and at present none of it benefits mankind because we enforce prohibition even though it plainly doesn't work - we all can easily buy drugs, and use them without any significant fear of prosecution, and 100,000s if not millions of Britons regularly do so while remaining productive members of society. Intelligent people have reasoned coherently that all drugs should be legalised and regulated (i.e. treat addiction as a public health issue, rather than a criminal one), and on the whole I think they have convinced me. But maybe that's because I had a permanently cooked head in my teens and early twenties

[Kezzer]

My cousin did drugs almost every day through his education. Now he has a PhD and is a scientist.

Twenty years ago there was a time when they said "smoking ten cigarettes a day is healthy". Alcohol is supposedly more poisonous than heroin (per unit I believe).

And the three biggest industries are in that order? I thought toilet paper would be at number one. Everyone needs toilet paper.

[autopilot]

What we are doing right now is clearly far from perfect and changes are need, such as allowing cancer sufferers to use cannabis and people who suffer from Cluster Headaches to take magic mushrooms (believe it or not liberty caps, like the ones you find on your lawn are one of the only things that really help this horrendous condition). But the blanket legalisation of all drugs would be a complete disaster.

I think the problem too many people have with drugs is the effect they observe is only ever from one class of people.

You hit the nail firmly on the head there. It's no coincidence that the vast majority of people with the option that legalising all drugs are generally young recreational users that have a nice middle class life, never had any problems with thier or thier mates use and have little experience of the real world. It's a selfish argument, because they don't want to get busted smoking a spliff or taking the odd pill at the weekends.

I spent 5 years as a social worker and my partner is a senior psychiatric nurse. We both had the opinion for years that most drugs should be legalised, but we know better now (and trust me, we are no angels ). Even cannabis use is a major mental heath issue now. The current situation is pretty poor, but it's the lesser of two evils.

It's about having a balance. Far more people would start taking drugs if they were legal, that would be much more of a problem than helping the few that do currently. Think about this - do the people who think drugs should be legal think that the government is right to make companies like McDonalds stop pimping their horrible products to children and get rid of the junk from schools? I hate the nanny state as much as the next person, but sometimes we need a bit of nannying.

And it's an illusion to think total legalisation would help treatment. How do you force someone to have treatment for something that's legal? There are many alcoholics that never get treated, unless they want to. The only way some people would ever get treated is if things got so bad they were sectioned under the mental health act. In other words, not until its probably too late.

And to think the black market would disappear, lol.

The problems in this country are from the way we treat drugs addicts as second class citizens and the terrible way we deal with them, not the law per say. Legalisation would serve only to sweep them further under the carpet. And does it put a huge amount of pressure on the police when they could be doing other things? Sure it does. But thats a deeper problem for the police and society as a whole. We would never take the checking of a car brakes out of the MOT test, just because a few mechanics are overworked. Just because we all brake the law every now and again, does not mean that law should be thrown out of the window completely. The laws do seriously need changing, but if the was a magic solution we would have found it by now.

[BlindMelon7]

I think it is unfair to ban weed and not cigarettes. Suposedly once you hit 24 mj no longer effects your brain as it has stopped growing. I'd say say cigarettes are worse than weed (I've never smoked a cigarette in my life ).

[Merlin4458]

Should ban both tbh. Theres nothing worse than sitting in a pub and u get some ignorant f**k blowing smoke away from him into your food. But then walking through a group of people who have all jsut been smoking weed or are, is one of the worst smells again!

[Ben_]

they should legalise the herb

ecstasy should remain illegal its the worst of the lot long term