The Philippines' War on Drugs

[lifted*fox]

Just now, MattP said:

Do show it up then Daz.

 

I think you're doing a fine job of showing yourself up already mate. 

[Guest MattP]

Just now, daz*dsb said:

 

I think you're doing a fine job of showing yourself up already mate. 

So that's a no then.

[Buce]

42 minutes ago, MattP said:

Whatever it is, we certainly need to do something about this, it still amazes me no one talks about the links between drug use and the amount of serious crime caused by the users, you can link virtually every major incident recently to a long term drug user, it can't be a coincedence. (I've stolen the following but the point still stands)

 

Timothy McVeigh, the 1995 Oklahoma bomber, used cannabis and methamphetamine. Anders Breivik took the steroid Stanozolol and the quasi-amphetamine ephedrine. Omar Mateen, culprit of the more recent Orlando massacre, also took steroids, as did Raoul Moat, who a few years ago terrorised the North East of England. So did the remorseless David Bieber, who killed a policeman and nearly murdered two others on a rampage in Leeds in 2003.
Eric Harris, one of the culprits of the Columbine school shooting, took the SSRI antidepressant Luvox. His accomplice Dylan Klebold’s medical records remain sealed, as do those of several other school killers. But we know for sure that Patrick Purdy, culprit of the 1989 Cleveland school shooting, and Jeff Weise, culprit of the 2005 Red Lake Senior High School shootings, had been taking ‘antidepressants’.
So had Michael McDermott, culprit of the 2000 Wakefield massacre in Massachusetts. So had Kip Kinkel, responsible for a 1998 murder spree in Oregon. So had John Hinckley, who tried to murder US President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and is now being prepared for release. So had Andreas Lubitz, the Germanwings pilot who murdered all his passengers last year. The San Bernardino killers had been taking the benzodiazepine Xanax and the amphetamine Adderall.
The killers of Lee Rigby were (like McVeigh) cannabis users. So was the killer of Canadian soldier Nathan Cirillo in 2014 in Ottawa (and the separate killer of another Canadian soldier elsewhere in the same year). So was Jared Loughner, culprit of a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona. So was the Leytonstone Tube station knife attacker last year. So is Satoshi Uematsu, filmed grinning at Japanese TV cameras after being accused of a horrible knife rampage in a home for the disabled in Sagamihara.
I know that many wish to accept the simple explanation that recent violence is solely explained by Islamic fanaticism. No doubt it’s involved. Please understand that I am not trying to excuse or exonerate terrorism when I say what follows.
But when I checked the culprits of the Charlie Hebdo murders, all had drugs records or connections. The same was true of the Bataclan gang, of the Tunis beach killer and of the Thalys train terrorist.
It is also true of the two young men who murdered a defenceless and aged priest near Rouen last week. One of them had also been hospitalised as a teenager for mental disorders and so almost certainly prescribed powerful psychiatric drugs.
THE Nice killer had been smoking marijuana and taking mind-altering prescription drugs, almost certainly ‘antidepressants’.
As an experienced Paris journalist said to me on Friday: ‘After covering all of the recent terrorist attacks here, I’d conclude that the hit-and-die killers involved all spent the vast majority of their miserable lives smoking cannabis while playing hugely violent video games.’
Now look at the German events, eclipsed by Rouen. The Ansbach suicide bomber had a string of drug offences. So did the machete killer who murdered a woman on a train in Stuttgart. The Munich shopping mall killer had spent months in a mental hospital being treated (almost certainly with drugs) for depression and anxiety.

 

 

You missed out that 70% of crime in this country (including rape and murder) is committed while under the influence of alcohol.

[lifted*fox]

Would you like to go trawling the internet to find examples of people who have done good for the world whilst under the influence of drugs?

 

Name some of your favourite bands Matt, I wonder if they wrote some of their songs or lyrics whilst high? 

 

I wonder how many of these terrorists also enjoyed a beer or glass of wine occasionally? 

 

You've got to be ****ing on the wind up mate if you're seriously trying to link drug use as a driving reason for acts of terrorism.

 

Wow, seriously. 

[Guest MattP]

2 minutes ago, Buce said:

You missed out that 70% of crime in this country (including rape and murder) is committed while under the influence of alcohol.

Is that true? I don't doubt you, would like to see a source though.

 

It certainly shows we have a long way to go on both though, although I'd be more interested in seeing the statistics for both and then what percentage of the population that uses both proportionally commits the most serious offences. No idea if we can find that out.

[Buce]

16 minutes ago, MattP said:

Is that true? I don't doubt you, would like to see a source though.

 

It certainly shows we have a long way to go on both though, although I'd be more interested in seeing the statistics for both and then what percentage of the population that uses both proportionally commits the most serious offences. No idea if we can find that out.

I'm too busy to track it down, Matt, but it shouldn't be difficult to find.

 

You only have to spend a night in any city to get an idea, though; all those morons fighting each other haven't spent the night merely smoking the odd joint.

 

Edit: Not the report I was looking for, but it illustrates the point:

 

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/focus-on-violent-crime-and-sexual-offences--2013-14/sty-facts-about-alcohol-related-violence.html

[Guest MattP]

There is nothing in than link to suggest 70% of crime in this country are committed under the influence of alcohol, 70% of weekend crime yes, it drops to 35% Mon-Fri.

 

 

[lifted*fox]

No worries then, get another round in! 

 

Just keep the alcohol fuelled raping and murdering to the weekends please. 

 

Surely Matt you can understand that not everyone who drinks three pints then goes on to punch someone in the street outside the pub / rape someone in the alley behind it, in the same way that not everyone who smokes a spliff goes on to strap a bomb to themselves or gun down a crowd in a nightclub venue? 

 

The fact that you're even asking people to consider discussing that pathetic paragraph linking drug use to terrorism is ludicrous. It's clearly someone with an agenda against drug use, much like yourself, trying to create a tenuous (at best) link between two unrelated things. 

 

Whatever next - terrorists all take sugar in their coffee so therefore sugar is the root of all evil? Come on... 

[pSinatra]

9 minutes ago, MattP said:

There is nothing in than link to suggest 70% of crime in this country are committed under the influence of alcohol, 70% of weekend crime yes, it drops to 35% Mon-Fri.

 

 

 

To be fair, there is nothing in your post to suggest that there is a direct correlation between smoking a spliff & becoming a homicidal maniac.

 

I'm not saying that drug taking can't send some people a bit loopy, but there are millions of people who enjoy recereational drugs, take steroids, anti-depressants, alcohol who don't feel the need to drive trucks through a crowd of people.

[Bellend Sebastian]

I think 'Be Here Now' is the worst offence committed on drugs

[Finnegan]

Your list is a pretty classic example of confirmation bias, Matt. Someone so inclined could probably provide an equally long list of persons not under the influence of drugs who'd committed terrible crimes.

 

I don't think Josef Fritzel had a serious ketamine habit and I don't remember reading anything about Steve Wright being a recreational drug user.

 

I'd also have to pick a few off your list and question how they prove your point.

 

SSRIs don't cause school shootings, the underlying conditions being medicated do.

 

Equally, you can be part of a subculture that embraces marijuana use and equally be coerced in to attacking a soldier in the street with a machete without the two being linked.

 

There's no real pharmacological reason that marijuana would have made the Rigby killers attempt to behead him in public.

 

That's the problem with your list. It implies Chemical responsibility for those crimes when, in all reality, drug use is either coincidental to their crimes or more likely that their crimes and their drug use were both independent symptoms of their life situation or psyche.

 

 

Edit: that's not to say your point is invalid for ALL the cases on your list and I don't question for one moment that some horrific acts have been undertaken by some people under the influence of some awful narcotics and pharmaceuticals.

[Buce]

1 hour ago, MattP said:

There is nothing in than link to suggest 70% of crime in this country are committed under the influence of alcohol, 70% of weekend crime yes, it drops to 35% Mon-Fri.

 

 

That's nit-picking.

 

When I have time I will link you to further statistics which will link alcohol to - for example - 30% of child-abuse cases, and a plethora of other abhorrent crimes. Furthermore, the examples of criminal behaviour that you cited do not exclude the possibility (likelihood?) that they were also users of alcohol.

[The Railway Man]

So we are settled then? Alcohol needs banning as well as drugs?

[Buce]

1 minute ago, The Railway Man said:

So we are settled then? Alcohol needs banning as well as drugs?

The fact that you draw a distinction between the two is quite revealing. Alcohol is a drug, and arguably the most socially destructive one of them all.

[The Railway Man]

Deffo. We all know the harm both can cause. Only reason it's legal is alcohol certainly more part of the social fabric than drugs.

 

If a drink came on the market tomorrow we had never seen before that does to me what a bottle of whisky does it would be class a in an instant, think we all know that.

[lifted*fox]

18 hours ago, m4DD0gg said:

Dont see the problem to be honest.

 

If alcohol were 'discovered' recently there is no way it would be a legalised substance.

 

The fact of the matter is that you can't stop people from doing something they want to do - such as the failure of prohibition proved in early 1900's America. It drove alcohol underground, lower quality / more dangerous product and causing more crime along with it's production. Eventually prohibition was lifted and the government made it a taxable, regulated product - in the grand scheme of things still not ideal as alcohol proves itself to be a dangerous substance time and time again. 

 

We're now seeing the same thing happen across the USA with Cannabis. 

 

What we're seeing in the Philippines is not a sustainable, forward-thinking approach towards drugs and drug-crime. Trying to wipe-out the problem isn't going to work. Drug-use and the crime that goes with it is deep-rooted into the society there because of things like poverty. The government there should be looking at the root-causes of their drugs problems, not just shooting anyone they suspect of using / selling drugs.

 

Saying things like "I don't see a problem with it" just shows how little thought you've given the subject. God forbid anyone in your family or even yourself should suffer from some kind of addiction at some point. Maybe it'll be alcohol, or a prescription painkiller - then when someone comes along to just wipe them out - just shoot them on their door-step, i'll be interesting to see if 'I don't see a problem with it' is still your response.

[leicsmac]

38 minutes ago, daz*dsb said:

 

If alcohol were 'discovered' recently there is no way it would be a legalised substance.

 

The fact of the matter is that you can't stop people from doing something they want to do - such as the failure of prohibition proved in early 1900's America. It drove alcohol underground, lower quality / more dangerous product and causing more crime along with it's production. Eventually prohibition was lifted and the government made it a taxable, regulated product - in the grand scheme of things still not ideal as alcohol proves itself to be a dangerous substance time and time again. 

 

We're now seeing the same thing happen across the USA with Cannabis. 

 

What we're seeing in the Philippines is not a sustainable, forward-thinking approach towards drugs and drug-crime. Trying to wipe-out the problem isn't going to work. Drug-use and the crime that goes with it is deep-rooted into the society there because of things like poverty. The government there should be looking at the root-causes of their drugs problems, not just shooting anyone they suspect of using / selling drugs.

 

Saying things like "I don't see a problem with it" just shows how little thought you've given the subject. God forbid anyone in your family or even yourself should suffer from some kind of addiction at some point. Maybe it'll be alcohol, or a prescription painkiller - then when someone comes along to just wipe them out - just shoot them on their door-step, i'll be interesting to see if 'I don't see a problem with it' is still your response.

 

Trying to apply logic as a response to this poster on this topic is a waste of time Daz - as good as your post is.

[Guest MattP]

3 hours ago, daz*dsb said:

Surely Matt you can understand that not everyone who drinks three pints then goes on to punch someone in the street outside the pub / rape someone in the alley behind it, in the same way that not everyone who smokes a spliff goes on to strap a bomb to themselves or gun down a crowd in a nightclub venue? 

 

The fact that you're even asking people to consider discussing that pathetic paragraph linking drug use to terrorism is ludicrous. It's clearly someone with an agenda against drug use, much like yourself, trying to create a tenuous (at best) link between two unrelated things. 

 

Whatever next - terrorists all take sugar in their coffee so therefore sugar is the root of all evil? Come on... 

 

I was just posing the question, it was a pretty long list to say the least and I'll repeat, virtually every single recent 'terrorist attack' on European soil was mentioned, but I'll take my medicine and take the debate as settled. The last line here is absolutely ridiculous though, is there serious evidence sugar can have long or short term mental health effects on people? So it's not comparable.

 

And I totally agree with people on alcohol, as others have said, if it wasn't already a huge part of our society and instead turned up in 2017, it would be banned in a heartbeat, but just because one thing is deleterious to society though doesn't mean you just legalise or legitimise another.

[lifted*fox]

Just because I feel like being facetious... 

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/where-science-meets-the-steps/201309/4-ways-sugar-could-be-harming-your-mental-health

[lifted*fox]

We don't see eye to eye on everything Matt but you're alright. 

[MC Prussian]

Wow, this thread has taken an interesting turn.

[Guest Bob Hazels shorts]

Singapore had a zero approach to any form of crime, basically a barbaric level. If your Grandad lost his hand for vandalism/ graffiti etc fair to say you'd give it a miss.

 

It has worked though, they still don't take shit, you'll never see a cleaner civilized place.

 

Manilla on the other hand (only?!) is frightening. I travel a lot but still ended up paying 10x what I should of to my hotel + on my way back to the hotel a spaced out cab driver kept me and family hostage until I paid (not on meter) a daft amount.#

Coming from Leicester and being hard!! I sat my ground, maybe not that clever in hindsight but it worked.

 

Only there 2 x 1 nights but didn't leave the hotel. Never seen so many people openly carrying guns. Gangster paradise.

 

The islands are beautiful if you don't mind long journeys ( and crapping yourself)

[Webbo]

I've never taken drugs so could somebody tell me how many pints I'd need to feel the equivalent to one joint?

[Buce]

1 hour ago, Webbo said:

I've never taken drugs so could somebody tell me how many pints I'd need to feel the equivalent to one joint?

I'm not sure if you're being serious, but there is no comparison to be made - it's a completely different feeling. The feeling one gets from a joint (I'm talking weed here, not the crappy hash that masquerades as cannabis) is one of euphoric well-being, physical and psychological relaxation and (particularly for first time/casual users) a heightened sense of the ridiculous. Music is particularly enjoyable as it enhances auditory perception. I personally find that it enables me to make great leaps of intuition (crosswords - which I know you enjoy - would seem much easier than usual, for example); I enjoy writing short stories, and my best work has always been while under the influence. Unlike alcohol, you will reach a 'plateau', so it's not a case that you will get increasingly stoned the more that you smoke, neither will you experience a hangover (though you may feel a bit 'foggy' the next morning). Also, if you don't want to smoke it, one can get the same effect through cooking with it. Whereas alcohol has the capacity to make one aggressive, marijuana has the opposite effect - a feeling of friendliness (you know, the whole 'love and peace' thing). The only similarity with alcohol is an impairment of motor function (I wouldn't drive while stoned).

 

[Finnegan]

14 hours ago, Webbo said:

I've never taken drugs so could somebody tell me how many pints I'd need to feel the equivalent to one joint?

 

Is it time for some Bill Hicks again yet?