Legalising drugs could save the U.K £14 Billion a year

Wookster

MyLastFiver wrote: »

We may have to agree to disagree, Wook, but you certainly do make a bloke think hard. :beer:

Thank you - I'll drink to that :beer:
(most probably 4 Guiness tonight)

MyLastFiver wrote: »

There is no simple answer, but we need a society which is fair and gives everyone the chance to be a valued and valuable part of it.

Couldn't agree more. It all starts with a good education.

JayScottGreenspan

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

The "other harm" argument is conclusive for smoked tobacco owing to passive smoking - the science is clear on the dangers in enclosed areas. Most of my friends and family who smoke now accept this.

This is why I am very anti-smoking (I strongly support the pub ban), but am prepared to ignore Daily Wail "xyz will give you cancer" stories.

I'm very anti-tobacco. The current law is probably about right, but I get annoyed when people expose their kids to smoke "in their own home", which is a right some people are very proud of!?!

If we were drafting the laws of the land from scratch, tobacco would probably get banned before cannabis.

Doom_and_Gloom

lynnexxxo wrote: »

And not to mention removing a vast amount of money and power from drug dealers, organised crime and gangs.

Not all true. By the Tax enforcement they are thinking of it could cost people, by my calculations, around £28.35 more to buy an ounce of cannabis than before (or around £3.54 more an 1/8). That means that the 'black market' would be undercutting them and the same problems go on.

I agree that illegal drugs should be legalised and taxed as it could support the educational system, the hospitals, fire brigades etc from the profits easily.
However we can not tax them as high as they are proposing as we could have the same problems still occurring. It would also encourage people to seek help if they are addicted if legal just like people do now with tobacco and alcohol. Tobacco related deaths are around 86,500 people a year in the UK* while alcohol related deaths are around 6,627 people a year in the UK*. Most of the popular illegal drugs put together however are around 2,763 people a year in the UK (includes heroine, cocaine and all amphetamines)*. Tobacco and alcohol are the two deadliest drugs available but are legal and taxed! Illegal drugs are not as deadly as people assume or like to feel they are they are just less socially acceptable to do!

If you read Ben Eltons High Society it suddenly makes sense why we should legalise these drugs. Or at least it did to me.

*statistics correct for 2005 but not much of an increase since in illegal drugs from what I can find.

kje_2

Singapore seems to have the drug issue under control.

It's odd that the "radical" solution to illegal drugs is legalisation yet no one wants to mention the other radical solution of executing the dealers and smugglers. Could it be that the reason that criminalisation of drugs doesn't work is because enforcement and punishment is weak compared with the rewards ?

mambury

MyLastFiver wrote: »

1. Yes, some are deterred by its illegality, but more importantly:
2. Illegality restricts supply, and
3. Makes its procurement covert. Most people (me included) would have no idea where to get heroin if they wanted it.
4. Legalizing something sends a powerful legitimizing message.

point 2 - illegality does NOT restric supply, it merely seems that way.
3 - if you really wanted to get off your face on anything you would find it

mambury

mewbie_2

Legalising drugs could save the U.K £14 Billion a year

It would certainly save me and the missus a few quid. Plus she could spend more evenings in.

endure

MyLastFiver wrote: »

We may have to agree to disagree, Wook, but you certainly do make a bloke think hard. :beer:



That's a damned good question. In my less rational moments I would like to see people who deal crack and heroin strung up from lamp posts, the parasitic scum. And this is why I don't want the state to be involved in their supply. Then we would all be benefitting from the misery of addiction.

A more sensible answer? Look at both the supply and the demand.

Supply: Why do we have air superiority over Afghanistan but continue to allow them to produce most of the world's opium? Destroy the Afghan poppy crop. Give the farmers a million quid each compensation - bargain. There - that's pragmatism for you.

Even more pragmatic would be to allow Afghan farmers to grow the crop legally, turn it into medical analgesics and use it to supply the worldwide healthcare industry which is suffering from a shortage of morphine-based painkillers especially in places like India.

MyLastFiver

I think legal drugs are already made from the Afghan yield. If there's a shortage I expect it'll be because the gangsters want it all for themselves.

lostinrates

mambury wrote: »

proven by studies in those people with a tendancy towards schizophrenia in the first place. Cannabis is a trigger not a cause.....

I'm not disagreeing with you...but ...does anyone you know who smokes admit they have any problems? IME most of the minority who seem to have minor 'issues' don't recognise the little things....the sentences they never end, that sort of punchy look. I'm not talking about the major things like psychosis or paranoia or psychosis, but the slight slowing and dimming affect almost everyone might have seen...in someone else

I know many people who do many drugs with no ill-effects at all. I know some, as I say, close to home, who really have. I have no fixed opinion on whats for the best, FWIW.

endure

There were articles in the papers and on TV news last year that the world is short of about 4000 tons p.a. of legal painkillers. The west insists that pretty much the same amount is destroyed in Afghanistan every year. If it was allowed to be grown and legally exported the Afghani farmers would have their income and the shortage would be ameliorated.