Could dope help the economy?

fc123

I see it's spot the dopehads tonight (as opposed to let's play spot the BNP sympathiser, BTL hater and the shaudenfraude types that seem to be multiplying on this board at the mo).
We need more wannabe comedians, gardeneners, wood creators and the rest.

I have never been a dopehead (never got on with it TBH) but some people I meet think I am a cokehead......as I am quite wired most of the time......BUT....I have only ever taken it once in my life....a long time ago...and it made it me sneeze,.....and was dead s41t, boring. The boyfriemd who supplied it (a bit of a rake from E London 25 yrs back) ended up doing 5 yrs in Holloway for dealing.

I have had some hands on exp with illegal stuff....like finding a grands worth of skunk under my sons bed once. The house stunk out. He is not a hard on user at all....recreational now and again, and only if it is a freebie...but he got involved with some S E London dealer types some years back. We sorted it out.

What was really cra99 about it was that we could only ever afford to live in that area and it was the area that created the problems......they just breed there. Hard work bringing up kids in an area like that TBH.

We sorted the stash, explained why it was not the best idea in the world to hide drugs in his parents house (he got paid £200 for the week rent as the dealers house was being watched) and he had to return the loot, split the £200 with us (as rent) and, if he ever did it again.....no words were needed. He didn't do it again. In fact, the dealer came around to apologise to me (~he was 17 then, nice kid but problems at home bla bla).

He is now doing 8 yrs inside for armed robbery. My son is about to graduate in a very 'useful subject' in June and worked out 'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime'.

Legalise it all, I say, then all the dopeheads can pay for the bloated public sector via taxes.

bookduck

amcluesent wrote: »

I shall be keeping a look out at the offy for this!

I don't know how much it cost, but apparently a heroine wrap is about £3, a line of coke is approx £5, about 2-3 bottles of wine to get drunk - around £10 or £30+in a club, a lump of hash, or very small bag of green £20.

Now you don't have to be a rocket scientist, or corrupt/delusional politician to guess which one the poorer folk/kids can afford to buy and may try. It is criminal to think how the laws and society has such a morally distorted view of the current affairs in not supporting safer options.

Mozette

chopperharris wrote: »

Some might not like to hear the ideas of people on this matter.

I am all for it , how about testing in scotland first just like poll taxes?

I drink and smoke , both are harmful yet legal and create a stream of revenue more than the expenditure on its negatives.I dont smoke dope , not through choice but because firstly its illegal and secondly I dont want to be around junkies and drug dealers.

Benefit-The savings being that dope heads will move to scotland , less dopeheads in the rest of the uk in theory means less crime there.... bonus and your rid of scumbags.

Benefit-It removes the court costs and police time freeing them up to police our streets more than using a pen and paper.

Benefit-Those with medical conditions that illegally self medicate with it will no longer be considered criminals.

Benefit-Reduced healthcare bill for prescription opiates , happier cancer patients with less side effects and weight gain.

Benefit-Added tourism.

Benefit-Removing the first rung of the ladder from drug dealers.

Benefit-Taxation akin to smoking , which would still be cheaper than buying from a dealer.Would bring billions to the coffers.

Benefit-Reduction in alcohol use and abuse , potentially.

I reckon the savings and cuts could easilly amount to 12 billion a year....more if those that dont do it today are only because of criminaltiy.

I can only see three arguable negatives here.Please feel free to add more.

Negs-Link between mental illness and long term use.Its no different to the drink and tobacco correlation results with mental illness.

Negs-A nation of non agressive zombies , consuming food in large quantities , sitting watching tv and too laid back to care what is going on around them...wait a minute this could actually be a benefit.Millions are doing that anyway without any dope apart from regular doses of soaps.

Negs-Gateway drug.I dont think it is really if its readilly available and away from drug dealers.

Thanks

Haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if I'm repeating.

Read Ben Elton's High Society.
Why not have all drugs available on prescription so the taxes go to the country rather than some dealer.
Safer for the addicts, and everybody benefits.
If tobacco & alocohol were discovered now, I dread to think what 'class' of drug they would be.
Can't see a downside to it.

MyLastFiver

I used to be pro-legalization but after seeing many of my students flushing their lives down the toilet by choosing to be permanently stoned, I've changed my mind. Yes, alcohol is harmful too, but schoolkids don't tend to use alcohol during the school day. Alcohol is hard to conceal, easily detectable and, if consumed in large quantities over a short period of time, makes you puke. Cannabis, on the other hand, is easy to conceal, hard to detect and it only takes 5 minutes to smoke a joint and get stoned.

I can't see how legalizing something that, in five minutes, can render children lethargic, forgetful and stupid could be good for the economy.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

Shares in Rizla jumped 30% after this stuff got posted. Maybe a lesson for the rest of the economy .
I know. Let's start giving away cars and banknotes.
Oops !! They're already trying that. Seems they beat me to it.

I think there was something in HH Guide to tha Galaxy about tree leaves being the main currency. However, due to the plentiful supply inflation was too high. So they cured it by burning down all the forests (not the cannabis plants though presumably ).

Davesnave

MyLastFiver wrote: »

I used to be pro-legalization but after seeing many of my students flushing their lives down the toilet by choosing to be permanently stoned, I've changed my mind. Yes, alcohol is harmful too, but schoolkids don't tend to use alcohol during the school day. Alcohol is hard to conceal, easily detectable and, if consumed in large quantities over a short period of time, makes you puke. Cannabis, on the other hand, is easy to conceal, hard to detect and it only takes 5 minutes to smoke a joint and get stoned.

I can't see how legalizing something that, in five minutes, can render children lethargic, forgetful and stupid could be good for the economy.

The flipside is that if you reintroduce harsh penalties, you then criminalise the same kids when they are caught in possession. Had I been busted in 1968-70, I'd never have gained entry to any teacher training establishment, so I'd have missed out on a degree and the subsequent 33 years of teaching. It was only luck, and hanging around with the 'right people,' that saved me.

In contrast, being smashed out of one's head on alcohol was treated very leniently at my grammar school, though I'll admit we achieved that state mainly at social events. It was regarded as 'high spirits' and, if the miscreant could not walk, a taxi would be called. I never saw anyone in that state on weed.

It struck me then that adult reactions to legal and illegal substances were, at best, illogical. Nothing in the intervening years has caused me to alter that view. All drugs are dangerous, and some are particularly potent, but proscibing the less hazardous forms just blurs the distinction between them.

Eventually, most young people grow up, so even those who now choose to be 'permanently stoned' may become model citizens in the fullness of time. If they really are in that state, then the adults responsible for their welfare need to consider causes rather than symptoms.

tomterm8

The other thing is that criminalisation has not worked to prevent the kids you are talking about actually taking the drugs.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

Davesnave wrote: »

The flipside is that if you reintroduce harsh penalties, you then criminalise the same kids when they are caught in possession. Had I been busted in 1968-70, I'd never have gained entry to any teacher training establishment, so I'd have missed out on a degree and the subsequent 33 years of teaching. It was only luck, and hanging around with the 'right people,' that saved me.

In contrast, being smashed out of one's head on alcohol was treated very leniently at my grammar school, though I'll admit we achieved that state mainly at social events. It was regarded as 'high spirits' and, if the miscreant could not walk, a taxi would be called. I never saw anyone in that state on weed.

It struck me then that adult reactions to legal and illegal substances were, at best, illogical. Nothing in the intervening years has caused me to alter that view. All drugs are dangerous, and some are particularly potent, but proscibing the less hazardous forms just blurs the distinction between them.

Eventually, most young people grow up, so even those who now choose to be 'permanently stoned' may become model citizens in the fullness of time. If they really are in that state, then the adults responsible for their welfare need to consider causes rather than symptoms.

Yes I ran into serious problems with drugs myself in my misspent youth with cannabis being at the milder end of the scale for me. Although there is no way of knowing for sure, being legally penalised at 17 for owning a small personal stash (about a quarter ounce) helped to alienate me from the straighter parts of society and may have contributed to my downfall. This was back in 1974 when the authorities treated such meanderings quite harshly compared to these days. I was fined £35 for my first ever transgression into illegality. To put that in perspective, it was near on two weeks take home pay. That fine forced me to continue living in a squat for a few extra months as I would have struggled to pay rent AND pay the fine. As I say, I probably would have continued on my slide anyway but the alienation and shame certainly wasn't a positice influence. I'm in my 50s now and finally sorted it out by 30 so I outgrew it when I was finally ready to.
My only two convictions were about cannabis possession and another incident that was cannabis related. I question whether legal punishment is the right way to go about this. Indeed, as I was 17 on my first "offence", for some years before and after that, I would have actually have been dealt with by a non adult court. It just happened that 17 year olds were treated as adults for legal purposes at that time. I was fined an adult fine while not being permitted to earn an adult wage hence the temporary poverty it caused. I will go further than that to say that I was actually fined more than normal too. In those days, £25 was the norm for a cannabis bust with no aggravating circumstances. I am of the belief that I was fined the extra tenner for being a squatter - effectively penalised extra for being poor. Before anyone says that I was poor due to scoring, I would say that, apart from a small share of it, the dope wasn't actually mine. However, I was the one who possessed it at the wrong moment so the rap was mine. Still, the old frat who fined me was an ex army major who didn't have a clue about the likes of me so I suppose that's what I should have expected.

Davesnave

Great anecdotal there, Paul.

Things certainly were different then. A friend of mine who used to smoke the odd joint was stopped late one night, probably because he looked 'unconventional' and, when the officers found nothing, they took him back to the station for a full body search. Eventually, they were forced to let him go and he arrived at my house around 4am, in shock, descibing his experience as 'like being raped.'

That friend was a well-balanced individual who was able to shrug off his experience in a matter of a few weeks, but he could so easily have been pushed towards alienation and contempt for authority if he'd been made of lesser stuff. And for what?

I don't think the police want to go back to those days either.

chopperharris

Davesnave wrote: »

Great anecdotal there, Paul.

Things certainly were different then. A friend of mine who used to smoke the odd joint was stopped late one night, probably because he looked 'unconventional' and, when the officers found nothing, they took him back to the station for a full body search. Eventually, they were forced to let him go and he arrived at my house around 4am, in shock, descibing his experience as 'like being raped.'

That friend was a well-balanced individual who was able to shrug off his experience in a matter of a few weeks, but he could so easily have been pushed towards alienation and contempt for authority if he'd been made of lesser stuff. And for what?

I don't think the police want to go back to those days either.

Forever the cynic says , was he merely found to be "not white" and after checking the law its apparently legal?:eek: