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Drugs to be legal in 10 years?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
What do you think about this?
Drugs legal in 10 years
I think that it would be a good step towards combating drug-related crimes, as well as reduce the mystique of the drug culture. Is 10 years too optimistic though?
Drugs legal in 10 years
I think that it would be a good step towards combating drug-related crimes, as well as reduce the mystique of the drug culture. Is 10 years too optimistic though?
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Comments
I'm pretty sure that it would be one of the first to be decriminalised.
:yes:
If they trial it with anything it will be heroin
Also, society would go to pot (no pun intended).
Yeah but to be honest... There'd probably be a huge drop in domestic violence, rape and assault if more people took pills or smoked pot on a Friday night instead of drinking.
I would argue price would go down, and quality could be checked and maintained.
My view - I don't doubt that current drug laws are failing. However, I've never been entirely convinced that a total legalisation is the answer to all this. I think serious practical questions remain. (for example, should it be sold in shops in the same way as tobacco, what should the age limit be and so on) For now, I will merely say that Brunstrom's prediction of total legalisation by 2018 is too optimistic.
Yes... No more crappy pills.
Yeh it was something like "This is the most idiotic chief constable in Britain"
And then they said that Ecstasy causes 50 deaths per year. This isn't true??
It's more than likely 50 deaths of people that have had some connection to Ecstasy near the time of their death rather than deaths as a direct result of taking Ecstasy.
As for the OP, I do unfortunately think that total drug legislation in 2018 is slightly too optimistic, although it's definately a relief to start hearing some much more sensible and up to date views coming from a Senior Police Officer. However, as others have said, I can see Heroin being legalised and available for prescription in the not to distant future which is a great start and will stop alot of crime. I can also see Cannabis being legalised for medical purposes but I'm a bit skeptical about this taking place in 10 years time.
Another drug that I think should be legalised and available for prescription (although I can't see this happening) is Cocaine. This would reduce crime the most IMO and would put an end to an going war and a corrupt para-millitary run economy in South America. This country is teeming with Coke and Crack addicts, and the prices which are being charged for this incredibly addictive and short lasting drug is what's keeping these groups in business and forcing people into crime.
I read that the combined Paracetamol and Aspirin deaths total around 200 per year combined with around 50 per year from ecstacy.
What people fail to realise is that ecstacy doesn't kill anymore than alcohol or any drug for that matter. The number of deaths does not correlate to how dangerous the drug is. This is because people die from ectasy when they take it irresponsibly... i.e. dancing for hours and hours in a hot club and drinking nothing but alcohol.
If people took ANY drug, legal or not in this way there would be a similar number of deaths.
Heroin is dangerous, cocaine is dangerous. Both of these drugs have low overdose levels which users can exceed accidentally. To overdose on ecstacy you would have to be either suicidal or stupid. Given that the average dose is around 125mg, and I have seen people take doses in excess of TWO THOUSAND mg without needing medical treatment etc.. there is a very large margin for error as it were.
Not so with drugs like cocaine and heroin. In a night, a person could easily go through 2 grams of coke while the overdose limit for a new user issomewhere in the region of 3-4 grams I believe. This is what makes them dangerous.
Ectacy IS a very safe substance. It has been researched and investigated many time using accurate scientific proceedure. Also, it doesn't make people violent and is non-addictive.
The "one dose can kill" argument is pointless. One bee sting can kill, one peanut can kill. If you are unlucky enough to take a reaction to them that is. Very very few people have taken such reactions to ecstacy. Most deaths are through users dehydrating due to non sensible use.
The bright side of legalisation would be education. People would be more aware of how to use ecstacy safely and there would be virtually no deaths from it. Compare this to alcohol and its a no brainer which one should be class A.
Of course it's not just short term risk we should be worried about.
Personally I think (and hope) the first big move will be the change in the schedule of heroin, this wouldn't change the actual classification but would allow much wider prescription of it and thus the black market would crash.
After that we need to move to a system of supplying most recreational intoxicants (including alcohol and tobacco) to the public with quality controls, information on dosage and taxes to discourage over use.
As for how safe or otherwise MDMA is, personally I think the comparison with aspirin is stupid, he should have known better than to say something like that which just discredits him regardless of the actual comparison of risks. If aspirin was made and supplied like MDMA is currently then they would be of comparable risk, but the general public arent going to look at it as deeply as that.
well... at this stage would expect them to say anything positive about it?
If we can't do it for war and environment it certainly won't happen for drugs. Oh and I actually dispute what the Chief constable said about Ecstasy, I think thats just as reductive, simplistic and unhelpful a view as the opposite 'killer drug' thesis.
'Ecstasy' is now the equivilant name for a range of different chemicals being bashed together for sale in a marketplace that has plummeted in value over the last 15 years. If we are talking about pure MDMA I would say that the effects are going to vary greatly from person to person, and while I would support legal supply of MDMA with encouraged responsible usage; I would put that behind the priority of strengthening and increasing awareness of mental health issues.
According to that report it says
"More than half of all recorded crime is caused by people feeding a drugs habit"
legal or not if someone is addicted they still need to find the money somewhere ..
Only thing I can thing is making it legal would mean prices came down, so maybe they rob 5 houses a month instead of 10.
Why cant they go hand in hand? We are a rich country, we choose not to afford decent mental health care, its not a matter of resources.
And if drugs were legally supplied it would be far easier to give out information on safer useage and how to get help if you have a problem.
Its an absolutely varst amount of crime, and its the crime people notice and care about too like robbery and car crime. Something like 85% of shoplifting is done by hard drug users and its about 75% for burglary.
Not if heroin is given out on prescription FREE to addicts.
Which if we are talking about long term maintenance prescriptions does raise moral questions as to what the NHS is there for. But to my mind that debate is totally overshaddowed by the reduction in crime and anti-social behavior we'd have. That and the reduction of OD's and other problems.
But - given more and more addicts are now users of both heroin and crack, would they not just continue with the current level of crime and increase their crack consumption? Its certainly possible, but if you were getting people into see someone for their heroin you could work more closely with them and hopefully stave off any increase in other drug use.
Exactly. Evils of cocaine/crack.
You could also just give people free money so they don't have to go out robbing. I saw a documentary years ago about an 18 year old in Milton Keynes who they worked out had robbed so many times he'd costed the state £2 Million - someone said they should have just given him £1 Million when he was younger and we'd have saved another million.
I don't think addicts should be offered even more drugs - think they should be offered the chance to get off of drugs.
Think there's some doctor in Italy that even puts people to sleep for like 30 days and then bring them out of their sleep and by then their bodies are free of the physical need to take drugs.
However, I've got one big problem with the idea. Let's say that somebody starts taking heroin via prescription in this way, and they end up becoming hooked. Whether the drug is legal or not, there are going to be consequences. Fewer when legal, admittedly, but they will still exist. If someone becomes hooked on heroin because they've been getting for free on the NHS, does that mean that the same organisation should pay for their recovery? I'm finding it a real dilemma.
Brunstrom's comments on Tuesday made some sense. The reason I claim he's being too optimistic with his 10-years-until-legalisation claim is that there are so many practical questions that need to be answered first, not to mention politicians that need to be convinced. After all, if they don't want to do it, it almost certainly won't happen. No, I think the real reason that Brunstrom's comments have caused such a furore is because his claim that ecstasy is safer than aspirin sounds, at least initially when you hear it, absolutely barmy. I must admit I wondered what he'd taken when he first came out with it. I'd be interested to know why he made that claim, and what evidence there is to support it.