Decriminalisation of drugs

[domalino]

Starmer doesn't matter. He won't be pm, and he's just sticking his finger in the air to find what direction the wind is blowing and saying whatever he thinks will avoid controversy.

This simulataneously aged terribly, and perfectly.

He obviously now will be PM, and yet he's still saying whatever he thinks will avoid controversy.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

This simulataneously aged terribly, and perfectly.

He obviously now will be PM, and yet he's still saying whatever he thinks will avoid controversy.

Sorry, it appears I was wrong on the internet.

 

[Ducado]

Probation is the worst thing to happen, it sounds alright, but in practice it’s made the problem worse

Can you imagine what would happen if all drug addicts could get pharmaceutical grade drugs dispensed in a safe place? Within a few years there would hardly any addicts left, what would be point of importing the stuff when the government supplies it for free, plus you get the added health benefits, and it’s also quite clear that many of the addicts could function in society

Same with so called recreational drugs like cocaine, if people want they will get it, but at the moment it just benefits gangsters

 

[Palerider]

You cannot stop gun crime either so should we legalize guns so that the police can spend their time catching real criminals? More seriously, I watched a Netfix show, Painkiller, which is about Doctors in the USA giving out a new painkilling wonder drug. The drug was heroin and not surprisingly thousands and thousands of addicts were legally created complete with the associated thousands and thousands of death and the destruction the addicts cause on their terminal decline.

 

[Ducado]

You cannot stop gun crime either so should we legalize guns so that the police can spend their time catching real criminals? More seriously, I watched a Netfix show, Painkiller, which is about Doctors in the USA giving out a new painkilling wonder drug. The drug was heroin and not surprisingly thousands and thousands of addicts were legally created complete with the associated thousands and thousands of death and the destruction the addicts cause on their terminal decline.

The majority of gun crime in the states is related to you guessed it, drugs

Prohibition created the American Mafia, now it sustains a myriad of cartels and street gangs the world over, if there is a need the market will fill it, better the market is controlled rather than the Wild West we have now, I know it creates a lot pearl clutching but that’s the way it is

 

[domalino]

You cannot stop gun crime either so should we legalize guns so that the police can spend their time catching real criminals? More seriously, I watched a Netfix show, Painkiller, which is about Doctors in the USA giving out a new painkilling wonder drug. The drug was heroin and not surprisingly thousands and thousands of addicts were legally created complete with the associated thousands and thousands of death and the destruction the addicts cause on their terminal decline.

The opioid epidemic in the USA is not really relevent to UK Drug conversations.

It came about, as you know if you've watch a series about it, from the corruption and bastardisation of the US healthcare system. Pharma companies bribing and inducing, sometimes seducing, doctors into prescribing their pills for things they weren't remotely suitable for; massively overprescribing and lying to people about the dangers of addiction.


In the rest of the world, that's simply not allowed to happen. individual doctors don't get to choose which drugs to sell to their patients. Pharma companies have no relationship with the people giving out medication. It's almost impossible to get prescribed strong opioid painkillers unless it's for dealing with terminal illnesses or major surgery.

 

[Always Ali]

The opioid epidemic in the USA is not really relevent to UK Drug conversations.

It came about, as you know if you've watch a series about it, from the corruption and bastardisation of the US healthcare system. Pharma companies bribing and inducing, sometimes seducing, doctors into prescribing their pills for things they weren't remotely suitable for; massively overprescribing and lying to people about the dangers of addiction.


In the rest of the world, that's simply not allowed to happen. individual doctors don't get to choose which drugs to sell to their patients. Pharma companies have no relationship with the people giving out medication. It's almost impossible to get prescribed strong opioid painkillers unless it's for dealing with terminal illnesses or major surgery.

Dopesick was a brilliant series, unbelievable drama and a tough watch.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Sorry, it appears I was wrong on the internet.

What’s that like?

 

[domalino]

Sorry, it appears I was wrong on the internet.

A capital offence!

 

[mosssideblue]

Perfectly valid fears given the way we see drug users today but I have an alternative view.

if , for example, heroin was legalised society would eventually (it wouldn’t happen overnight) go back to where it was before the late 60s. What used to happen then was that a heroin addict would go to his doctor and be prescribed heroin along with a safe place to take it on the condition that he or she also undertook counselling to come off the drug (studies over the years in every country that has done them have consistently shown that heroin addicts in particular are self medicating to overcome trauma, often from childhood, and often of a sexual or violent nature). Counselling can and did help them come off the drug.
They wouldn’t have to steal or commit any crime at all I’m order to receive their fix and could instead spend their energy making themselves better. They also wouldn’t have to recruit new addicts in order to gain more customers for heroin (very many addicts are user dealers, dealing the drug to make money to buy their own.) hence the explosion in heroin addict numbers from around 3000 in 1960 to many hundreds of thousands today.
With this system, crime against property would reduce by an unimaginable amount. It would statistically disappear almost. (Studies have also shown that the vast majority of crime against property (burglary etc) is as a result of the drugs trade. If you’re an addict with no job what do you do to make money to buy heroin? You steal and/or you sell heroin to new customers).
Addicts wouldn’t be searching out new customers, burgling your house, mugging you or committing any one of a number of other crimes in order to get their drug. They’d be taking safe, medical grade heroin, at a safe health centre, and undergoing counselling with the aim of ending their addiction. No problematic heroin addict wants to be a heroin addict. At the moment they just have no other choice in order to get through their day.
Thats just heroin.

if we legalise Cocaine, and sell it openly from, for the want of a better expression, “drug stores” (chemists), again we would be selling safer coke, without as many additives (laxatives are the least harmful. Arsenic,rat poison etc are the most harmful) and offering advice on how to take it.
We do that now with cigarettes. And booze.

if you are a young lad or girl who fancies a line or two on your night out which would you rather buy? Regulated, safer cocaine from a Shop, or rat poison from a guy who either carrries a gun or works for someone that carries a gun?

Again, you would reduce the take from organised crime to the tune of billions a pounds a
year and raise tax revenue for the country. Certainly at first there would still be street dealers , as there are now for illicit cigs and booze, but they simply wouldn’t be able to compete with safe, regulated product that is readily available.

People think legalisation would lead to an explosion of drugs use (I used to be one of these people) but I no longer think it would. We have educated our kids away from cigarettes (I’m 50, when I was 14 over half my mates smoked. Now cigs use in teenagers is reduced massively. You hardly see kids smoking these days. When is was a young un loads did.

All it would lead to would be safer drugs, less hospital admissions, vastly reduced levels of crime and increased tax revenue.
Not to mention hugely reduced claims against insurance companies, and gigantic reductions in policing workload.

Theres a reason in the 60s and before there was “a Bobby on every street corner”. Part of that reason is that police weren’t dealing with an army of organised drug gangs carrying automatic weapons in every single town, village, and city in the country. Every day. So they were able to police by presence alone. They didn’t have to drive around in armoured cars in huge numbers. They could and did police their own beat And they knew their communities. It might never get back to those halcyon days but if violent crime (almost always linked to the drug trade) is significantly reduced, policing will change. And it will change for the better for all concerned.

And lastly, and most depressingly, studies show that when a copper arrests a career burglar, burglaries in his area reduce (burglars don’t need to recruit other burglars in order to survive etc). When the police arrest a drug dealer (almost always a low level drug dealer as the higher ups are too well protected by the fear of extreme violence to anyone who “grasses” to ever be arrested, or even known about) studies prove that the supply of drugs does not reduce by a single ounce. it just gets ever more violent (to further “protect” against being grassed up and to instil extreme fear in one’s customers).
As mad as it will sound, every drugs bust increases the level of violence in that community, and makes the violence even more extreme.

Our current system provides over 7bn a year to thugs, murders and gangsters.
If we chose to, we can turn off that tap of illicit money overnight and instead reap the benefits of reduced crime, reduced drug users, reduced insurance premiums, and increased police resources to deal with other crimes.
Its time we did exactly that.

Not so sure, but not knowledgeable on drugs to be.

Kids may or may not be smoking fags as much as yesterday, but they sure as hell are harming themselves on vapes.

How will those taking drugs continue to fund their habit to purchase from chemist shops?

Prescription drugs still cost money, and if they are free prescriptions, then that is the tax payer.

Illegal drugs are harmful and have consequences impacting more than the user.

Should be looking at eradication not legalisation no?