Legalise cannabis?

[Steven]

No not people like me I don't have any say in the matter. I don't allow anything. It's the governments that make the laws and you can argue until you are Blue in the face but Legalising drugs is not going to happen end of.

Which criminal gang do you belong to?

[lavrentis]

Legalize da erb.

[flowwolf]

...You were saying Flowy?

Well lets see now , I was not talking about america where their individual states can and do pass different laws. In Britain one law is for all counties and city's. Do you really imagine that Labour or conservatives will include in their manifesto's for the next general election " vote for us and we will legalise cannabis " it would be political suicide because despite what the pot heads on here think the vast majority of the electorate in this country abhor anything to do with drugs and anything to do with legalising it. You know it's not going to happen I know it's not going to happen so the whole thread is a mute point.

[flowwolf]

Which criminal gang do you belong to?

Sorry I missed the connection what on earth are you talking about ? :rolleyes:

[Steven]

Sorry I missed the connection what on earth are you talking about ? :rolleyes:

For anyone who will not recognise that the status quo only encourages criminality.

But there are no age limits in a black market. Neither is there any other form of control. Prohibition is not control, and should not be equated as such. It is the abrogation of control leading to the unregulated peddling of adulterated substances outside the reach of the law. Apart from not beginning to achieve its aims, prohibition makes drugs artificially expensive and spawns an avalanche of acquisitive criminal behaviour.

[Webbo]

For anyone who will not recognise that the status quo only encourages criminality.

But there are no age limits in a black market.

So when drugs become legal youngsters won't be able to buy drugs?

[Steven]

Channel 234 Sky at 8.25 tonight.

[flowwolf]

For anyone who will not recognise that the status quo only encourages criminality.

That's like saying we should make paedophilia legal because it only criminalises paedophiles. The status quo is there for a reason.

[Guest MattP]

Whatever someone spiked my drink with on Saturday to make me fall sleep on the pavement in Central London and refuse to move should never be legalised. Bastard.

Edited 15 November 2012 by MattP

[Steven]

That's like saying we should make paedophilia legal because it only criminalises paedophiles. The status quo is there for a reason.

So smoking cannabis is on a par with paedophilia. Why not just reach for Hitler straightaway.

[flowwolf]

So smoking cannabis is on a par with paedophilia. Why not just reach for Hitler straightaway.

Well he was a well known pothead and kiddie diddler so if the cap fits and all that . come on Steven my point was you can't decriminalise something just because it criminalises those breaking the law by doing it. Just because cannabis users don't agree it is illegal doesn't mean it it isn't illegal .

Edited 15 November 2012 by flowwolf

[Rincewind]

When I was at my brothers last week we had a discussion on this subject. It was put forward that like prostitution, if all drugs were legalized and strictly controlled that being only available from a pharmacy it would cut out the criminals and the drugs that are tampered with which cause the damage. My elder brother said -and he has an high intellect - that all it could be done by a government but MP's will never pass the law as they have to be seen to be doing something. When a drug dealer is caught a Government minister will say 'Our stance on drugs is working, we will not tolerate this evil act.' and the public read it in the papers and say hooray I'll vote for them cuz I believe everything that I read in the papers (substitute drugs for almost any con traversal topic if you like)

Cannabis I see as a social recreational drug used by many most live a normal liife, go to work and have families. The harder drugs are used by desperate people. Those who have had family problems, breakdowns, suffered with alcoholism or vulnerable children from broken homes. They are often homeless and are preyed upon by the criminal element who sell the drugs that are more dangerous that have been tampered with such as crack. It is this area that must be addressed and just jailing the ones who use it will not stop them. If it was regulated they could control the amount they use and may even change their lives for the better which would not be a bad thing.

[flowwolf]

When I was at my brothers last week we had a discussion on this subject. It was put forward that like prostitution, if all drugs were legalized and strictly controlled that being only available from a pharmacy it would cut out the criminals and the drugs that are tampered with which cause the damage. My elder brother said -and he has an high intellect - that all it could be done by a government but MP's will never pass the law as they have to be seen to be doing something. When a drug dealer is caught a Government minister will say 'Our stance on drugs is working, we will not tolerate this evil act.' and the public read it in the papers and say hooray I'll vote for them cuz I believe everything that I read in the papers (substitute drugs for almost any con traversal topic if you like)

Cannabis I see as a social recreational drug used by many most live a normal liife, go to work and have families. The harder drugs are used by desperate people. Those who have had family problems, breakdowns, suffered with alcoholism or vulnerable children from broken homes. They are often homeless and are preyed upon by the criminal element who sell the drugs that are more dangerous that have been tampered with such as crack. It is this area that must be addressed and just jailing the ones who use it will not stop them. If it was regulated they could control the amount they use and may even change their lives for the better which would not be a bad thing.

Or better still people should not be so stupid as to take drugs in the first place then there would be no problem or black market or dealers and less crime ever thought of it that way ?

If you dabble in the dirty world of drug abuse why should anyone else give you any sympathy if you overdose or buy tampered shit . Tough shit you made that decision live with it.

Edited 15 November 2012 by flowwolf

[Rincewind]

I hope you or your family are never in the position. I doubt you have met let alone spoken to anyone who have been in this position.

But that is not your problem is it? As long as you are OK the rest of society do not matter.

[bmt]

Everyone I know that smokes weed regularly is reliant on it and has become less intelligent (when they were all quite intelligent in the first place). To me that is no to decriminalising it, end of argument.

All the people who say there's nothing wrong with it etc. are spouting bullshit to try and justify taking it to themselves.

[Steven]

Or better still people should not be so stupid as to take drugs in the first place then there would be no problem or black market or dealers and less crime ever thought of it that way ?

If you dabble in the dirty world of drug abuse why should anyone else give you any sympathy if you overdose or buy tampered shit . Tough shit you made that decision live with it.

So you will be writing to your MP asking him/her to introduce a Bill to outlaw alcohol and tobacco.

All I want is either no restrictions (for persons old enough) and the User bears the health consequences of their actions (subject to an extra tariff to cover the cost of the health consequences) or all substances subject to restriction based on the individual harm they do.

Anything else is hypocrisy but as we all know hypocrisy is something politicians do in spades.

[Steven]

Everyone I know that smokes weed regularly is reliant on it and has become less intelligent (when they were all quite intelligent in the first place). To me that is no to decriminalising it, end of argument.

All the people who say there's nothing wrong with it etc. are spouting bullshit to try and justify taking it to themselves.

For the record I do not smoke weed or tobacco and I drink very infrequently.

What gives the right to one group of people to dictate to another group of people as to what they should or should not ingest, particularly when the consequences of that ingestion are bourne by the indiviual doing the ingestion.

I hope you will campaigning for the outlawing of alcohol as it too has serious mental health effects.

[Bellend Sebastian]

When I was at my brothers last week we had a discussion on this subject. It was put forward that like prostitution, if all drugs were legalized and strictly controlled that being only available from a pharmacy it would cut out the criminals and the drugs that are tampered with which cause the damage. My elder brother said -and he has an high intellect - that all it could be done by a government but MP's will never pass the law as they have to be seen to be doing something. When a drug dealer is caught a Government minister will say 'Our stance on drugs is working, we will not tolerate this evil act.' and the public read it in the papers and say hooray I'll vote for them cuz I believe everything that I read in the papers (substitute drugs for almost any con traversal topic if you like)

Cannabis I see as a social recreational drug used by many most live a normal liife, go to work and have families. The harder drugs are used by desperate people. Those who have had family problems, breakdowns, suffered with alcoholism or vulnerable children from broken homes. They are often homeless and are preyed upon by the criminal element who sell the drugs that are more dangerous that have been tampered with such as crack. It is this area that must be addressed and just jailing the ones who use it will not stop them. If it was regulated they could control the amount they use and may even change their lives for the better which would not be a bad thing.

I think there's a lot of truth in that.

There is a political challenge that has to be overcome of presenting to the public a sea-change in policy which basically involves conceding that the previous approach that we've persisted with for decades didn't work.

One of the things that I find interesting is that increasingly the drive for change is isn't coming from some moral standpoint but, perhaps unsurprisingly in these times of austerity, a realisation that current policy is delivering such piss-poor value for money. Those states in America where it's being legalised aren't indulging in some hippy dippy experiment for the love of mankind - they've realised that they're forking out millions to barely make a dent in the problem. When there's such pressure to cut budgets, spending comes under scrutiny and in particular the net result of the money that's been spent.

To an extent this means it's not a liberal vs conservative argument anymore - it's an argument within the more conservative end of the political spectrum over whether a hard, punitive line over what could be construed as a moral issue should be taken and pissing huge quantities of tax payers money away for little noticeable benefit.

It's a tricky concept to sell to a populace who I think (and this is borne out by some of the comments on here) that drugs are only a problem for those living on council estates and that any change to how the issue is tackled will inevitably lead to drugs being handed out to children in the playground like sweets everywhere. The terminology used in the debate isn't especially helpful - 'legalisation' doesn't equal 'make freely available' but it seems to be interpreted that way by a lot of folk. A lot of time is wasted debating relative harms of substances, wasted in that the effects of most if not all of the substances being debated, including both cannabis and alcohol, are well known. Prohibiting the supply of a substance on the grounds of the harm it does is one thing, but if you cannot suppress demand and you don't control supply, what's the point?

[Rincewind]

Drug usewrs do not take drugs with the intention of becoming criminals but for the need of the drug. Find the cause of that need and do so,methingh about it and the need and use of drugs will go down. Fining or imprisononing someone for use is like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

[Webbo]

Drug usewrs do not take drugs with the intention of becoming criminals but for the need of the drug. Find the cause of that need and do so,methingh about it and the need and use of drugs will go down. Fining or imprisononing someone for use is like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

I'm pretty sure someone trying drugs for the first time doesn't need drugs, they try it because they want to. If illicit drugs didn't exist they'd manage without them. Moral of the story"if you don't want to depend on drugs, don't take them in the first place".

[MooseBreath]

I'm pretty sure someone trying drugs for the first time doesn't need drugs, they try it because they want to. If illicit drugs didn't exist they'd manage without them. Moral of the story"if you don't want to depend on drugs, don't take them in the first place".

Yeah but you see, you don't know their circumstances and what led them to trying drugs. They've probably had really tough lives with lots of problems and that's a perfectly valid excuse for being a complete idiot. The rest of us simply don't understand, because we've literally never had a single problem to deal with and we were all born into a perfect life.

[Rincewind]

Good reply Moosebreath. Keep up the good work.

[AdamN]

I can only hope the people who get on their high horse about others' drug habits have led a fully drug free life - be it from heroin or ibuprofen.

[foz.foz]

Or better still people should not be so stupid as to take drugs in the first place then there would be no problem or black market or dealers and less crime ever thought of it that way ?

If you dabble in the dirty world of drug abuse why should anyone else give you any sympathy if you overdose or buy tampered shit . Tough shit you made that decision live with it.

So I guess you don't use the NHS then and get Drugs from the Dr for any ailments you have from time to time.... Some people are addicted to prescription medicine/drugs that a Dr has given them. Just out of interest, what's your view on these members of society?

Are they scum like these rest of life drug users or do you have sympathy for these folk because a legal, qualified person has authorised the use of this drug?

[SystonFox]

Yes make if legul innit I wonna gerraBUZZ and ting