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Ban them for children by all accounts. Educate people about the effects if you must. But do not dare tell people they cannot take certain substances because they're bad for them. I mean, what the fuck???????????
Cocain is worth a trillion dollars a year to the American economy.
Do you realy believe anyone wants to stop that?
The explosion of opium production is down to American and British foriegn policy.
The protction of it's growth and production into heroin and the even the protection of supply lines out of Afghanistan is down to British and American forces.
sO WHERES THIS WAR ON DRUGS AGAIN?
I'm staying mostly out the argument, because we've had it before. However, whatever weed they're smoking now, it isn't mellowing them out or calming them down. Most of our arseholes are getting high on some form of weed and it's causing more problems than beer ever did. It's making them more aggressive, and certainly far more paranoid than they ever were.
If indeed that is happening (it may well be other factors than just the pot) isnt that a strong argument for state control?
I can see your point, and with the majority of drugs used within this country that is the sensible approach, you have licenced shops which can supply cannabis, MDMA, mushrooms and a few other hallucinogens.
Heroin obviously should be on wide spread prescription.
The problem lies with crack and to a lesser extent meth. Poly drug use among addicts is increasing and if we gave out heroin on script that extra money would go on crack. And if we sold crack at a rate to under cut dealers their use would also rise.
There is really only so much heroin an addict can use, but crack is quite different.
Diamorphine is used in hospitals all the time, a lot of the opium for it is grown in Tasmania I think. I'm sure we could come to an agreement with other governments for supply.
Turkey used to have a big problem with growing till they moved it over into the legit market. There were incentives for farmers to only supply to the local legit wholesalers and the black market growers were hounded out of the market. We could try the same in Afghanistan - but we wont be able to because of the Americans who believe even in a medical setting heroin is too dangerous and addictive, thats why they prescript oxicontin, a synthetic opiate which is every bit as dangerous but made by a drug company so its alright.
It could also be a stronger argument for more stringent punishment. Swings and roundabouts
Punishment's should reflect the crime.
Punishments shouldn't be increased just because the laws not working properly. Maybe we should start locking people up for speeding?
Stronger punishment didnt work in the past, and it wouldnt work now.
And what about the random acts of violence on members of public and their own family?
We had a lad who lost a kidney because his brother went nuts and stabbed him, no alcohol but high levels of THC in his blood.
Budda, I'm not arguing either way, just pointing out the other side
And the law as it stands did exactly what to prevent that?
Nothing!
People who want to smoke weed will smoke it. It's everywhere and nothing you, the police or the government can do will stop that. Experience shows us this.
The law as it satnds is causes more problems than the drug itself, even a lot of experienced police officers admit this.
There are certin people who are more likely to suffer mental problems through the use of weed, but that doesn't mean to say they were 'unhinged' to begin with.
Yeah, it can cause people to flip out but only if But to claim there's some sort of magical new weed thats causing more problems than beer ever did is a gross exaggeration.[/QUOTE]
Well again to be fair, weed is A LOT stronger than it used to be, and with it being cheaper than ever more people will smoke stonger stuff more often. This is what's happening. Cannabis realted menatal health issues have increased.
I beleive it shou'd be decriminalised, but I don't beleive we shoudl ignore the obvious risks it has. Cannabis is not harmless.
If they had found traces of mayonaise in his blood would they have blamed that?
Currently the most accepted explanation is that it triggers underlying schizophrenia or causes a relapse. MRI scans show healthy people can get schizophrenia type symptoms due to THCs effects on the inferior frontal cortex. However they're very mild symptoms which fade quickly, which is not the case for schizophrenics.
Cannabis isn't actually that much stronger if all forms are taken into account. Percentage of THC in cannabis buds has decreased dramatically, but resin and oil has been around forever at the same or greater potency.
According to "Causal association between cannabis and psychosis: examination of the evidence" The British Journal of Psychiatry (2004) 184: 110-117:
"Results: On an individual level, cannabis use confers an overall twofold increase in the relative risk for later schizophrenia. At the population level, elimination of cannabis use would reduce the incidence of schizophrenia by approximately 8%, assuming a causal relationship. Cannabis use appears to be neither a sufficient nor a necessary cause for psychosis. It is a component cause, part of a complex constellation of factors leading to psychosis."
8% assuming a casual relationship is pretty insignificant.
It's worth noting that according to a study a few years back a third (33.7%) of schizophrenics have, or have been diagnosed in the past, with Alcohol Use Disorder.
Of course, but people tend to overstate the risks for political reasons more often than not.
The fact that cannabis can obviously aggravates underlying mental health is not something I'm denying, but you cant brush off all cannabis users with mental health issues by saying there were mentally ill in the first place.
And theres evidence to suggest a certain genetic makeup will make you more liable to suffer mental health problem through the use of cannabis. These people with this certain genetic makeup may be predisposed to mental health issues through the use of cannabis, but they are not 'unhinged' to begin with.
I've noticed quite a serious increase in bud strength over the years. Most users I know agree.
Is it? A two fold increase on an individual level definately isn't insignificant.
And naturally people on the other side of the fance people understate the risks more often than not.
I'm not arguing that it should remain illegal. I just think the argument that cannabis is pretty much safe is wrong. The way it's being heavilly used by a lot young people is most certainly harmful.
Calling them 'unhinged' was just a bit of hyperbole, I'm just trying to stress there's no evidence is causes schizophrenia in people without a predisposition.
Typing error, I put decreased when I ment increased. As I said though, resins and oils have been around at greater or equal potency to the new strains.
'increases risk' is political statisitical wankery, it means absolutely nothing. No mechanism has been put forth as to why it would 'increase risk'. What they do is survey schizophrenics and see if they've smoked cannabis before. They do not control for other drug use and as I pointed out earlier, if they were to do the same statistically wankery with alcohol the 'alcohol increases the risk of schizophrenia' statistic would be a considerably higher percentage.
You're sort of turning morality on its head though. You're saying that the law is at fault, that the law makes them break the law. If the price of heroin is high because the police are hitting supply, then some addicts will commit crimes to get money to pay for their addiction. Do they have to? The addict is at fault for the crime, because he has chosen, of his own free will, to go out and commit that crime, just as he chooses to go out and buy heroin. The law is not wrong for saying to the addict that he should not buy heroin, or saying to the dealer that he should not sell heroin, they are both wrong for choosing to break the law and they should be duly punished for making the wrong choice. Heroin and people's choices are to blame for the crime, not the law.
You say that legalising it will destroy the black market and I don't see why considering how resilient dealers seem to be. Even if the government could stop itself from increasing taxation (which government can?) and so stop prices from going up, there will still be a black market regardless of the price. Unless you're going to give out heroin for free there will always be a black market.
On the addict who needs help. The law can be changed so that the addict who makes the decision to go and seek help isn't punished for doing so. You don't have to legalise drugs for that.
You say that legalisation doesn't mean ?cultural acceptance? or ?encouragement of use? but I disagree, that's precisely what it means and many of the people who argue for legalisation argue for it because they want it to be culturally acceptable. Alcohol is legal and alcohol is culturally acceptable. The law exists to discourage people from doing certain things. I fail to see how the fact that the law no longer says ?you shouldn't do this? isn't encouraging me to do it if I want to.
Like I said more money should be spent if more money is needed. More prisons should be built if more prison places are needed. We should create other sources of income for the Afghans so that fewer grow poppies.
Heroin, Coke and Meth are known to be very addictive. Meth is also linked to psychosis. Those other drugs you mentioned have their own different set of negative effects as well. As you already know.
Which completely ignores the fact that part of why it is illegal is the addictive effect it has. Chronic addiction is a good thing is it?
The Taliban did that with great sucsess.
The people were growing peaches apricots wheat etc.
The only people who defied the Taliban were the Northen Alliance.
The Taliban have been removed from power.
The American government give the Northen Alliance billions of dollars.
Most of which goes into restoring the opium production.
The Taliban didn't reduce the production of opium for a season ...they slowly eradicated the stuff over years ...and it worked.
The bullshit you get fed now is that the farmers have no alternative to poppy.
Well guess what ...they did have under the Taliban.
Agriculture was changing in just the way we are told the west would like it.
I'm not saying the law is at fault, I'm saying the law isn't relevant to whether people will go out and buy heroin or not. They do so regardless of its legality, they break the law incidentally.
Heroin use is it's own punishment and the crimes the addicts commit are crimes regardless of the motive. Why should possession alone be a crime? Punishing someone for heroin possession or use achieves nothing, it does not lower the amount of addicts. It's just a ridiculously expensive exercise in finger-wagging; "That'll teach you for taking heroin young man, now go waste more of the taxpayers money by sitting in jail for a few days....we've not got more important crimes to deal with". The law should not be used to punish people for the sake of punishing them, it should be used to minimise the impact of 'bad influences' upon society. It is not heroin use as such that is the bad influence upon society, it's the criminal black market supply gangs and the crimes of the desperate addicts that are. The best way to minimise those influences would be legalisation.
A black market so tiny it's insignificant. There's little if any black market for alcoholic spirits for example, you never hear of gang turf wars over who's selling the vodka on the estate (except during prohibition in the USA, of course). Pure heroin is manufactured already VERY cheaply and can be sold for a fraction of current prices, no-one will take the risk of smuggling or manufacturing poor quality street heroin when it's not expensive enough to be worth the legal risk. Dealers only bother because of the high profit involved; they cannot compete with modern industrial production.
For heroin, yes. For other non-addictive drugs where help isn't necessarily needed we're still left with black market criminal gangs and the burden to courts, prisons and police.
Because culture and society has a far more important influence than law. Law should be a pragmatic and objective system. There are plenty of things that are legal but frowned upon by society and hence socially discouraged; people will still 'look down' upon junkies regardless of the law. In the case of heroin, withdrawal is a more potent deterrant to the junkie to not kick the habit than legality is for them to kick it.
There are more important uses for tax money than finger wagging.
No I don't already know. Let's assume you've made the case that heroin, coke and meth are "too dangerous" to allow people to have, you've got to do that all over again, for every single drug that you want to ban. And you haven't. Name one that kills more people than peanuts or aspirin. You're just ignoring the scientific fact that these drugs are far less dangerous than practically anything you can come up with. You're opinion is based on absolutely nothing.