Government reclassifies cannabis as class B

[Blitzen]

OK then Steve, and without a flame please.
How come, if its OK to use for recreation in small quantities is it a banned substance?
Surely if it was as harmless as some think, why wouldnt it be made legal and used as another way of gaining taxes?(This is a genuine question that would be good to see another point of view on)

(As i said earlier btw.....my drug knowledge isnt great. I do remember from being a teenager though that all the people i knew that hand a puff once in a while, were also not adverse to speed (not sure what it is though), and some of them coccaine every now and then.)

Try to remember, that as someone that hasnt been anywhere near any kind of illegal drug (knowingly) for the best part of 20 years, it is difficult to understand why people dont want it reclassified. Would it make any difference anyway?

Also....my view is nothing to do with being on the moral high ground...........having a forces background meant that any kind of drug abuse, whether it cannabis or angel dust, mneant that i would get a prison term and discharged.
Honestly, moral high ground isnt my thing.

[TiG]

Well it is obvious from his posts that stewart is smoking the stuff as he writes these stupid replies! Come on Mods, surely we can't have people like him who openly admit they are druggies using these forums?! It gives Hexus a bad name.

He is obviously off his head.

As for his 'Dealer' being small time, where does 'he' get the stuff from? Boots the chemist?

Gee, what a sad life.

YOU WHAT?, Ban people who have taken any illegal substance from hexus. Its been reclassified class b, not persecute and ban anyone who has ever admitted to trying any drugs.

For the record i've never smoked a cigarette let alone any form of illegal drug. I'm all for removing a huge potential for criminal organisations for getting money, be it Prostitution, Drugs or anything else.

Legalise it, turn it into a cash generator. Remove the money from the gangs, removing a level of organised crime. You can better control people with addictions taking drugs, It becomes cheaper as a product, safer to take - quality standards. The side affects become better known and further research be done.

TiG

[Stewart]

Surely if it was as harmless as some think, why wouldnt it be made legal and used as another way of gaining taxes?(This is a genuine question that would be good to see another point of view on)

Because things that are harmless are usually legal, you mean?

Like ciggies. Legal.

And harmless...

Or, as the case actually is, pretty much *the* most lethal things on the market.

How safe something is mate, has nothing to do with how legal something is.

Es, for example, are as safe as houses, and yet are a class A drug.

Oh, and you must have missed Nichos reply to your post mate, as you didn't quote it and pull it apart. Just pointing it out to you...

[Stewart]

YOU WHAT?

*falls off ladder*

[Blitzen]

I did see Nicomach post but i was more interested in your responses. Also, when a post resorts to assuming what paper you read i just skim over it as its just not interesting.
Your points are interesting however as you obviouisly feel strongly about it.

I have already said my experience with drug stuff is limited and thats why i am asking about it,.

Why is it a banned substance then? I cannot get my head around that. The government could make a fortune by legalising it and taxing people for it so why not?

I dont know if Cannabis is harmful or not.....i wouldnt have thought its anymore harmful than cigarettes though.

[Stewart]

Bit late in the thread to start asking questions and stop telling everyone what should be, to be honest mate.

You seem a little less sure of your position now.

Weed is far less harmful than ciggies. Thousands upon thousands of people will die, and die slowly, due to ciggies this year, nobody has ever died just from smoking weed, and if you 'smoke' it without tobacco, in, say, a vapouriser, as I do when I'm being a 'druggie' (and a druggie who should be banned, no less), it is harmless.

As for why its illegal... dunno. I thought you were dead set against it, and therefore, you knew?

So... why is it illegal mate? Because its so evil, yeah?

[pollaxe]

IIRC most drugs were banned due to concerns over productivity around the time of WWI.

Most IMHO should be legalised and taxed. However, politics in this country is not grown up enough to be capable of a reasoned and grown-up debate on the subject.

For the record, the strongest thing I take is Jack Daniel's and the occasional cigar.

[Rosaline]

I know its almost exclusively only drug users that are moaning about the reclassification.

By this, you are attempting to imply that it is only drug users who disagree with this change. The bvery nature of people who support this change, however, is such that they wilfully do exactly what you have just done - brand anyone who speaks up a 'druggie' and uses that to discount anything they say.
And of course, there is the good friend apathy. If you don't use cannabis, the change doesn't effect you, so there's no need to speak up, especially with how proponents of the move behave.

I know that people that smoke weed (is that what its called) more often thatn not do other stuff aswell.

Yes, cigarettes and tobacco .
Seriously, in the case of most users, it is only a gateway drug to other forms of smoking. The majority of claims of gateway drugs are by reverse association, rather than by following lower-level drug users to see if they 'move up'.
Furthermore, claims of gateway drugs entirely ignore the reasons why people use drugs in the first place. Generally, well-adjusted and happy people tend not to use drugs, whilst those with serious problems in their lives find the release drugs offer very useful. You are more likely to escalate in drug use due to circumstance than you are due to prior drug use. Yes, having used a lower level drug there is less of the social inhibition to using a harder drug, but that is about it - weed does not have magical "make mainlining look fun" properties.

I know that kids rob houses/mug people to get the cash for this habit.

And adults too!
I can't argue with this, since people happily commit crimes to fund their alcohol addiction too. Of course, it should be noted that the common person likely to use drugs is likely having financial difficulties anyway and living in conditions which, even prior to drug use, made crime appealing.
Cannabis though, unlike many drugs, tends to be usable whilst still remaining functional within society. It is seen as a worker's drug, in comparison to harder drugs that are seen as the preserve of the lost. I'd like to see some hard figures on the levels of cannabis inspired crimes.

I know that there is definitely a link between this stuff and mental health issues.

Given that one study that found a positive link used such a widespread definition of psychosis that everyone would classify as suffering from mental health issues, of course there appears to be a link.
The link between mental health issues and cannabis is still somewhat debated, although it does seem to be erring on the side of there being some effects. However, the big trouble here is the need to classify all varieties of cannabis as the same drug. There is such a widespread difference between the breeds that a single proclamation simply cannot encompass all the effects and lack of effects. Sadly, though, this is an entirely unavoidable situation.

Edit: There is also the fact that mental health matters suck. They actually tend to be a nice encouragement to take to drugs in and of themselves. Since the nature of mental health issues is such as it is within society, accurate monitoring of mental health status is very difficult indeed, with people covering up as much as possible until it becomes, due to circumstance, drug use or the passage of time, more than they can handle.

I also know the 'alcohol' argument for this is as weak as it gets.

ahahahahahahahaha...

Seriously, who do you think you are kidding by saying that?
Have you seen a city centre on a friday night? Have you considered the cause of the majority of A&E injuries? The BBC recently ran a report detailing how a significant number of workers are harming British industry by working when hungover or even drunk! How many people get violent when drunk, how often is alcohol involved in domestic violence? If drug availability and legality effects usage (a required belief for proponents of cannabis worse-classification), then which drug will be a person's first port of call? Which drug is most likely the first in a series of gateway drugs? How many people end up with liver damage each year?

I could very easily go on. The argument is anything but weak - it's proven!

[Stewart]

UK DRUG DEATH FIGURES (Average) PER YEAR! READ THEM WITH YOUR EYES! Don't just shout at me about being a druggie, read them.

Tobacco - 120,000.
Booze - 4,235.
Weed - 4. (All cases it was mixed with other drugs)
Heroin - 187.
Cocaine - 21.
Peanuts - 7.
Viagra - 7.

So, obviously, what we need is to - BAN PEANUTS!!1!!

Any comments mate?

[Blitzen]

Nope......in a round about way you have answered the questions.

The others i have can wait for a bit. You are obviously right in everything you say and im am completely wrong.

Rosaline...i got to the second quote and realised that you either couldnt see what i meant or chose to dance around it.
I didnt bother with the rest as you are clearly always 100% correct aswell.

[Stewart]

The bvery nature of people who support this change, however, is such that they wilfully do exactly what you have just done - brand anyone who speaks up a 'druggie' and uses that to discount anything they say.

A druggie who should be banned, no less.

Did I already say that?

Its the drugs, you see..

[Stewart]

You are obviously right in everything you say and im am completely wrong.

Never mind mate.

Have a spliff.

[Rosaline]

Rosaline...i got to the second quote and realised that you either couldnt see what i meant or chose to dance around it.
I didnt bother with the rest as you are clearly always 100% correct aswell.

I've re-read your post, and I can't see the other meaning. I'd be happy to address any mistaken interpretation if you would let me know how what you intended was different to my interpretation.

Oh, and I should note that despite all the less-bad aspects to the use of cannabis, I am strongly against the major involvement of various forms of organised crime in it's production, and the major source of funding it provides. I don't think that the classification change will effect this at all, though.

[nichomach]

It's not often that I find myself agreeing with a fellow of the Adam Smith Institute either, but the following article bears reading:
Home Secretary goes crazy on drugs... policy | The Register
The article does a pretty thorough job of demolishing, in order, the mental health myth and the moral panic about "skunk", before getting into the nitty gritty of precisely how the moral panic is being used to justify punishing people before they've even been convicted of an offence, as well as effectively denying them a fair trial so that it's easier to convict them.
After noting that the ACMD's report on the matter states:

You will note that, after a most careful scrutiny of the totality of the available evidence, the majority of the Council’s members consider – based on its harmfulness to individuals and society – that cannabis should remain a Class C substance. It is judged that the harmfulness of cannabis more closely equates with other Class C substances than with those currently classified as Class B.

The author notes with understandable asperity:

There doesn't seem to be much point in reading any more of that report, nor paying attention to it, for obviously, no other ****er has either.

I note, by the way, that Blitzen's following his usual tack of ignoring the substantive part of any post that disagrees with him, and seizing upon a comment not even addressed to him to discount it.

[funke_munke]

IIRC most drugs were banned due to concerns over productivity around the time of WWI.

It is truly crazy how the class system works, as you say some drugs haven't been reclassified in donkeys years!

For instance: the reason why mushrooms are class A, a drug that maybe a handful of people have died from in the last 100 years, a drug that completely leaves your body within hours, is because they grow on the bloody mountain behind my house and theres no way to control them


On the cannabis note, I think it's slightly bonkers putting it up, but we all know it will go back down soon enough, this seems to happen every few years when theres some other pm-unfriendly news going down.


Slightly off topic but did anyone see the recent horizon about drug use and the 20 most dangerous drugs in Britain? Was quite interesting and educating, not the usual scare mongering and uninformed rubbish, rather it was based on impartial scientific fact, and showed some results that may shock many people!

[format]

I think it’s a good thing as most of the n*bheads round here sit on the dole and smoke it all day. Now when I call the police because they are fighting in the street they can be carted off to Jail for possession as well.

Jay that's a pretty narrow minded argument - I know plenty of people on the dole who drink lots of alcohol but should that be illegalised?
Even is you think Cannabis should remain illegal (which I'll admit, there certainly is a case for), should it really warrant up to 5 years for possesion?