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Which ones? Alcohol? Aspirin? Are 'drugs' bad purely because they are against the law?
You assume that all those with addiction problems are on the dole - they are not. There are many so called 'white-collar' addicts (particularly to opiates) who are able to function without state maintenance.
Because we are paying for them anyway. We all pay for them through taxes for police, prisons and court costs. Plus of course we all pay because of the crime - insurance etc.
Illegal drug addiction costs billions, and we all pay. Either we accept that and actually try and deal with the situation, or we carry on paying indirectly through increased crime. Mass prescription of heroin to addicts would cost us a lot less than the current situation.
Not to mention the tens of thousands of 'functional' alcoholics.
i was taking the piss out of stitty
who's saying the war is lost?
I just think taking away a source of income from a bunch of desperate people will create a rise in crime. That £45 they will lose needs to come from somewhere, with a record it's not gonna be from a job, most likely gonna be the telly from my house.
So in other words if you gave people the drugs on prescription they wouldnt commit the crimes?
The 'war' on drugs is unwinnable. Always has been, always will be. And no punishment in the world is going to deter people from taking drugs.
Yet Iran which has similar penalties has hundreds of thousands of heroin addicts and even a small but growing crack problem. Its society which is the key factor - tough penalties by themselves dont work.
No, some people are pre-disposed to comitting crimes, drugs are irrelevant for them. All the new rules will mean is that those addicts who lose their £45 a week in benefits will go and steal a few extra car radios to make it up.
Stop trying to make me agree with your belief that the war on drugs is lost
I'm disagreeing with him because he is trying to put words in my mouth.
I agree with you all that stopping someone's benefits is a very bad idea for all concerned, and we certainly need to think about what needs doing. I don't personally think the route we should be taking is the legalisation of drugs, when ultimately we want people off them.
Treatment for the users, hard time for the dealers/suppliers/traffickers (who are normally tied in with other crimes anyway.
I completely agree there should be treatment available (although at the moment it seems very few people actually finish it properly). But 'hard time' for dealers has proven to be no deterant what so ever, in fact the harder we make it for dealers the nastier they become.
There's too much emphasis on deterrent, prison is a punishment as well as a deterrent.
10 years inside for smuggling cocaine might not deter someone else, but it'll certainly punish the poor sod who got caught and banged up.
Yes, but what does it actually achieve? How many people do we need to lock up before it starts working?
it punishes the person who got caught dealing......
Putting someone in prison for 10 years costs us loads, if all we are doing is punishing one person with no deterant factor then he will be replaced, the trade will continue and we have gained nothing.
There needs to be a benefit if we are going to send people to prison, public protection (doesnt work if the dealer is replaced quickly), rehabilitation (currently isnt working at all) or deterant (doesnt seem to have any effect).
You see, that's where the clever bit comes in. Publicise that drug smugglers will only serve a couple of years. Then arrest them all at once and sentence them to 30 each. They'll be taken by surprise!
Seriously, most big-time dealers and smugglers carry weapons anyway, and they're very unlikely to ever be come across by someone as low down the food chain as me, so i'm not worried about being shot. The most I have to worry about are the knife wielding maniacs that live on the estate I patrol.
The smugglers and the dealers have more money than the Police will ever have.
I remember a few years back that the met were celebrating the biggest coke bust in history and we talked about it on here ...i made a post about the met saying coke would be in short supply for a while ...and the reality was that the streets were flooded within 24hrs with coke that was purer and cheaper ...like a it of defiance.
Soemone very stupid made this all up he should stand in front of the world and announce how stupid he is