If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
Essential support for under 25s
Essential support for under 25s
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
When someone wants something there's always someone to sell.
I was wondering when it'd be her fault...
How old are you? Do you remember it?
Not quite old enough, wasn't in the right country.
But from the reading I've done on it for my studies, thatcher wasn't as bad as everyone tries to claim. The miners, IMHO, were asking for it.
Depends on what you source you use for your studies as well.
Tends to be the academic journals.
I think some of them did- the £10billion that was pissed away with the Poll Tax fiasco is a great case in point- but I think that given the situation after the Heath and Callaghan governments tough action was needed on the Unions, who had become too involved in Government and had become too powerful. Essentially my belief is that the miners shot themselves in the foot- they demanded wage rises they couldn't get, and the power stations just went and bought coal from Romania instead. By the mid-1980s it was actually cheaper to import the stuff from Australia than it was to operate the UK mines- and the miners have no-one to blame but themselves.
It's still a tragic mess though, especially around here (County Durham/Northumberland). I think the unions needed to be taught a lesson, but I think the miners probably paid too high a price for it.
Still depends which ones you read. Or don't you think academics can be biased?
For that alone Margeret Thatcher should be remembered in infamy as an evil, twisted witch from hell. The champagne is on ice (as it has been for the last 3 years or so, as it happens) for the sad day in which she pegs it.
But that's another debate and I don't wish to derail the thread further.
looks like your off the hook for a while whowhere.
only a years turnover of illegal drugs.
Do you seriously think the State can become the UK's dealer and pocket that cash. Who would do it , pharmacists, doctors, doubt many of them would touch the issue. Many people in responsibility are anti-drugs. What about the law-suits 'my son was a triathllete till he took that E, now look at him, he's a cabbage' Life is not that simple
Drug workers already give out needles and advice, would it make a huge difference if they could also refer you to treatment centers?
Licences could be sold, in a similar way to the 3G mobiles for the opening of cannabis cafes. The potencial for profit is good enough that the government wouldnt have to put any money up themselves. All they would have to do is let private companies bid.
The type of reform I want is over a long period, 7 years plus before we got to a point where MDMA and the 2-C series of drugs would be available. That would give the government lots of time to look into the most effective, safe and easy way of distribution.
Personally I would suggest that local social services handle the operation, it could be a 'one-stop-shop' for your sexual, drugs, etc. problems, plus being a community centre.
That's not really Thatcher's fault- that was the French shafting us. Besides, she wasn't PM then;)
Of course academics are biased, but I've read all sides. I've even read articles saying that Militant wasn't such a bad thing either- but on balance I don't think it was.
Sorry, but you're clueless. Try listening to people who know what they are talking about.
Please enlighten me further,You don't mean yourself , do you?
Total approx value of goods stolen in a city 2003-2004 which are drugs related=£150-£200 million.
Approx value of goods stolen that won't fund an addiction=£50 million
Total street value of those goods is approximately 1 third.
Total weekly cost for a heroin addict to fund his addiction=£500
Total value of goods a heroin addict must steal every week to fund it £1500.
Percentage of heroin addicts in custody who are unemployed=80-90
Percentage of people in custody with traces of drugs in their bodies=68%
Percentage of those people with heroin and cocaine in their body=57%
Paints a lovely picture doesn't it. The police estimate that if the drugs stop then robberies and thefts will drop by approx 2/3.
And no, legalisation is not an option I'm afraid. A lot of people who are much cleverer than us have decided that the crime would just shift elsewhere and still cost the country money from lost tax revenues in other areas to about the same amount.
As for cannabis, the unofficial line is if it isn't blatant then do what you like. if you use it blatently in the street, near children or if children themselves use it then you're fucked.
There is already enough trouble without adding cocaine, heroin and amphetamines into the mix.
:banghead: LISTEN to what we're saying. Legalise heroin, make it free on prescription to addicts. You won't find any addicts stealing to fund their addiction when they can get safe herion free from their doctor.
How is that figure worked out anyway?
What bollocks that is. Care to explain how this percentage was reached.
.
Sorry but that argument about people 'much cleverer than us have decided' is total bullshit.
Who's belief? The people who hold this belief are like you - gernerally ignorant of the simple plain facts that we're trying to show you.
There is already enough trouble without adding cocaine, heroin and amphetamines into the mix. [/B][/QUOTE]
They are already in the mix though! :rolleyes: Keeping them illegal doesn't stop people takign drugs, it only makes criminals out of normal law abiding people, or punishes addicts for having an illness when what the really need is help. We need to stop driving drugs underground.
He does have a point.
If someone needs heroin and they can get it free then surely crime rate will drop and the gear they get will be safe stuff.
The more I listen here the more my mind is starting to change.
Seeing as I work in the field and am studying qualifications in the drugs field, I think I know a little more than you do.
What a load of crap. The crime would "shift elsewhere"? What? The crime is committed to feed drugs habits. Take the artificially high price and balck market out, you get rid of the crime.
Who are these clever people anyway? I'm willing to concede they are cleverer than you anyhow. Not cleverer than the rest of us though.
Please tell me why. You have no substance (pun sort of intended
in the sixties addicts were prescribed ...no drugs problem. in america only illegal supply available ...big problem cos of big money.
no one is saying that giving addicts what they need is ideal ...they are saying it will be a massive improvement from what the situation is now, for everyone. an addict will have no excuse at all to steal or be unemployed ...if he commits a crime he has no excuse ...so bang him up heavy.
the current situation is cuasing mayhem. lets go back to the old situation of prescribing which proved itself to work.
when alcohol was taken out of capones hands ...the killing and the poisoning stopped. industry and government had taken control again. read through this entire thread ...it realy is interesting.
the only other option is ...tell me what the options are W.W.
we cannot carry on like this ...billions of quids available to villains and the drug sitution getting ever bigger.
i keep asking what the solutions are ...we have illegal or legal ...illegal is going to destroy the world we know and love.
what is your solution to the problem.
...and seriously WW ...you have had some serious shit thrown at you on here ...respect for sticking with it.
Seconded Mr Roll. Some of you need to calm down and stop telling people they are speaking rubbish simply because they offer a differing opinion. Proof was asked for and Whowhere posted some statistics.
Instead of telling him they are bullshit, perhaps you would like to post some statistics of your own backing up your stance???
Instead of going in for the kill, perhaps you could try persuasion through evidence, I'm all for impassioned debate but this is getting a bit out of hand, and you don't get your point across by merely telling someone they are wrong.
It boils down to what option will cause the least harm to the users and society as a whole.
Yes there will always be harmful users, and yes there will still be drug users who commit crime, but if you get up in the morning and you know where your next hit is coming from that HAS to reduce crime.
I think purely increasing the number of treatment centres would make a big impact. People have to wait WEEKS if not months to get into one. Thats weeks where you have to find 100 pounds a day+ from somewhere.