Neighbours Smoke

onlyroz

GlynD wrote: »

but the scourge of drugs is the biggest killer and filler of prisons in the UK.

Which is why all drugs should be available on prescription, and taxed, just as long as the purchaser is willing to attend an appropriate rehabilitation program.

GlynD

esuhl wrote: »

Do you mean highly addictive drugs such as nicotine? Tobacco smoking is generally considered more addictive and kills far, far more people than illegal drugs. And many drug-related deaths are due to prohibition - heroin addicts injecting contaminated drugs or being uncertain as to the potency, for example.

And anyway, alcohol is very obviously a recreational drug! You used it, yet say that you don't understand why anyone would do such a thing?!

I'm not suggesting that there should be a "free for all" with any drug being easily available without any safeguards, but criminalising the very person who is harmed by their own use of a drug is fundamentally immoral and only increases harm.

Allowing a black market to flourish also generates billions of pounds in profits for organised criminals and, potentially, terrorists.

If illegal drugs are illegal because of their addictive or harmful properties, then alcohol and tobacco should be banned at once. Otherwise, drug laws should be reviewed so that we can move away from this hypocritical system and actually treat addictions instead of brushing them under the carpet.

Thank you for pointing out the inadequacies of my prose. I take it you got my point?

GlynD

onlyroz wrote: »

Which is why all drugs should be available on prescription, and taxed, just as long as the purchaser is willing to attend an appropriate rehabilitation program.

I believe that is the case already. It's really the illegal drugs trade I'm on about.

spadoosh

onlyroz wrote: »

Which is why all drugs should be available on prescription, and taxed, just as long as the purchaser is willing to attend an appropriate rehabilitation program.

people on drugs dont want to be rehabilitated its only when they come down/sober they want to. You could get em to agree but then if they didnt would you take the drugs away thus going back to the original problem?!

onlyroz

GlynD wrote: »

I believe that is the case already. It's really the illegal drugs trade I'm on about.

I was talking about the illegal drugs. If they were legal then people wouldn't have to turn to crime to pay for them, they'd be able to get themselves on a program to help with their addiction, and they wouldn't run the risk of snorting ground-glass or paracetamol instead of the real drug. Also, overnight all the pimps and pushers would go out of business.

spadoosh

onlyroz wrote: »

I was talking about the illegal drugs. If they were legal then people wouldn't have to turn to crime to pay for them, they'd be able to get themselves on a program to help with their addiction, and they wouldn't run the risk of snorting ground-glass or paracetamol instead of the real drug.

People resort to crime to steal alcohol and cigarettes

Tropez

GlynD wrote: »

I would have to disagree. I agree that the first three issues are serious enough to warrant concern but the scourge of drugs is the biggest killer and filler of prisons in the UK. If all the effort which we've seen being put into the anti-smoking lobby was spent on reducing the drugs problem then society would be much better off for it. That's my 2 1/2d worth anyway.

I would have to root out the DVD I have with the actual statistics on it but since the United States declared its war on drugs, they have spent hundreds of billions of dollars, made hundreds of thousands of arrests, formed numerous different new agencies to fight this war and yet the percentage of people addicted to drugs in the US is the same then as it is now, which given population growth means that more people living in the US are addicted to drugs than they were before the war on drugs started.

Since 1985, the US has increased annual spending on its war by over $15bn and yet drugs are one of the few commodities that don't seem affected by inflation - prices have dropped on the street, indicating that a larger supply is now available.

I realise that these statistics are for the United States which obviously has a very nearby neighbour supplying much of these drugs but the situation isn't that much different in the UK. The UK spends roughly £1.5bn per year on anti-drugs measures, amongst the most in Europe, and yet has the highest rate of drug dependency in the European Union. As with the United States, since 2000 the street cost of all drugs has fallen dramatically, with the exception of cannabis (arguably the least dangerous of the lot), which had a price fall into the mid 2000s but then increased back to its original 2000 level. These reductions, once again, indicate that the availability of drugs on the street is higher than it was 10 years ago, despite all of that spending and this is essentially confirmed in a 2008 report by the UK Drug Policy Commission.

Should we just give up? No but you can throw all the money you want at it and lock up the estimated 70,000 street dealers but the 300 or so people who run the entirety of the UK drug industry are so far in the background that it takes decades for them to ever be prosecuted. It would arguably be better to target the community issues related to drugs such as prostitution.

onlyroz

spadoosh wrote: »

People resort to crime to steal alcohol and cigarettes

At least you don't have to buy them from a drug baron in a back-alley, and you know exactly what's in them and who made them.

adouglasmhor

GlynD wrote: »

I agree that not all drugs are the same. It's the highly addictive ones I was really referring to, although I don't understand anyone who uses the so called "recreational" drugs which are around. Anybody younger than me will doubtless say I'm just not with it but these drugs were around in my youth and I never bothered, nor was I subject to much in the way of peer pressure. I always reckoned drink was a big enough thrill without spending my hard-earned on a substance which was manufactured in dubious circumstances.

But back to the subject matter. Addictive drugs are a problem. The "Just Say No" campaign may have had an effect but not enough to reduce the epidemic. Even in rural areas in your neck of the wood are sadly affected because now they can go from Guardbridge down the A92 much quicker than in the old days. They're in Glenrothes or Kirkcaldy before you can say boo to a Canada Goose and the next thing they're bringing bacgs of it back to their rural idyll and using it then they frighten the horses and I don't know about you but I find that scandalous.

I know I was born in a rural area but I grew up in Glasgow and live there now - so druggies everywhere. If someone wants to smoke a joint in their garden or living room - so long as its not in front of the kids (and they aren't in the services or something)I don't give a monkeys. If a scrote goes around breaking into houses to feed his habit; I think I would like to treat their addiction by taking them shark fishing round the western isles, using them as live bait (I am pretty sure basking sharks eat plankton which are higher up the evolutionary scale than junkies) not a high risk of mortality.

I did try cannabis suppositories a long time ago but for all the good they did me I might as well have shoved them up my backside.

GlynD

spadoosh wrote: »

People resort to crime to steal alcohol and cigarettes

I think "perspective" is the word which is needed here. People steal for all sorts of reasons.