Potty Priorities
The tabloid headline driven drug laws in Britain are a mess. The next Prime Minister of Britain spent his days at Eton smoking dope, the current Home Secretary says she only smoked “weak” dope, as if that makes a material difference. If they had been caught and convicted they would probably not have got where they are today.
It is a mad situation where you get a lighter sentence for raping someone than you would for selling them a joint. Which do you think is worse?
According to the government’s sentencing guidelines study in 2004, the average custodial sentence imposed for rape of an adult was 79.7 months and for GBH was 50.1 months. For dope dealing the average was 84.0 months.
Why does “intent to supply” a relatively harmless, though wrongly categorised class ‘A’ drug like Ecstasy, attract a stiffer sentence than “attempted rape”?
UPDATE : Just noticed that Peter Wilby in the New Statesman is saying the contemporary left is too timid to be rational on drugs. The centre-right is too, given that a fair share of the Shadow Cabinet have enjoyed recreational drug use, isn’t it time we stopped kow-towing to Dacre and had a grown up attitude to drug addiction? It is a public health problem, not a criminal / judicial problem.
Hat-tip : UK Drug Policy Commission
Think I’ll try ” 3 in 1 “
Is that you Mr Jacqui Smith?
Religion followed the next day with drugs, ensures divisiveness I suppose
Nah, it was “I married a weak dope”. No admission at all about smoking it.
People who argue against legalisation are by default lobbying on behalf of drug dealers.
So if you argue against legalising paedophilia are you lobbying on behalf of paedophiles? Fool.
paedophiles have a unwilling victim, drug dealers have a willing customer.
I think you’ll find that drug dealers are a consequence of the legislation. Therefore, to advocate legalisation is hardly lobbying on behalf of the illegal drug trade and its practitiones..
… oh hang on a minute, I’m agreeing with you!
Mitch,
Are you trying to equate drug use with paedophilia?
What a strange thing to say.
You know what I’m saying. Wanting something to remain criminal doesn’t mean supporting the criminals involved.
I’ve been wibbling about this for years – pot is only a ‘gateway’ drug because you buy it off fucking dealers. Luckily I started smoking with dudes who knew their shit but i’ve done absolutely shed loads of drugs because you may as well.
Mind you, if it was decriminalized or legalized, does that mean that you can text your local man still and get home deliveries? Fantastically convenient.
Dick Wow Dope and Pizza together. There’s millions in that franchise. Needs a catchy name tho.
Mitch,
Yes, I do know what you are saying but I’m sure you can see how silly it looks know that you have said it.
The point is to protect children and young people. Drug Baron’s are also involved, while they are trafficking drugs, in exploiting and trafficking children.
I am merely suggesting we shut down their money supply and regulate drugs properly. I believe that would also have the effect of reducing child exloitation globally.
A fair point, no?
Please don’t go here Guido. I have two teenage dughters and I have warned them not to go near drugs. Its a constant and hard battle all parents have. I believe they have not done drugs but in my experience worldwide
‘drugs bring an instant hit and a lifetime of misery’
People die providing them and then die taking them .
Sorry Guido but on this one I disagree with you
sorry..should be ‘daughters’ my A key is shite on this PC
If “drugs bring an instant hit and a lifetime of misery” then wouldn’t you know if your daughters had taken ecstasy?
Yes but you are doing the right thing and talking to your kids a lot of shitty parents in this dump of a island probably supply them to their kids.
We will all be on drugs soon enough if these hoons win another election.
And if you want your daughter to be protected from drugs then you should be in favour of drugs being highly regulated.
At the moment that is not the case. I am no woolly minded liberal but a pragmatist. By legalising drugs I mean that a person over the age of eighteen would need a drug taking licence to purchase the drugs and the venue selling the drugs would also need a licence. Furthermore I believe the amount of drugs a person could buy in a period of time should be observed and restricted so as to reduce addiction.
If a person sold drugs to anyone under eighteen years of age they should receive a very heavy sentence.
This seems to me to be the only realistic way of protecting our young people against the damage that drugs can cause.
currently anyone can buy anything and as drug dealers will sell any old rubbish. We are not protecting young people by allowing this lack of regulation to continue.
“No, I don’t do drugs anymore, either. But I’ll tell you something about drugs. I used to do drugs, but I’ll tell you something honestly about drugs, honestly, and I know it’s not a very popular idea, you don’t hear it very often anymore, but it is the truth: I had a great time doing drugs. Sorry. Never murdered anyone, never robbed anyone, never raped anyone, never beat anyone, never lost a job, a car, a house, a wife or kids, laughed my ass off, and went about my day.” – Bill Hicks.
———————————————————————–
This is the same for the majority of recreational “soft” drugs users. Alcohol causes far far worse social and economic problems than cannabis does yet most of the political leaders on all sides drink alcohol.
Sorry Agent 99, but I’ve got to disagree with you and support Guido – there are millions of recreational drug users who never go beyond that, recreational use. There’s a hell of a world of difference between having a spliff, or even taking dance drugs and taking heroin or crack, two horrific drugs which all but a very tiny minority of idiots avoid like the plague.
It’s all about knowing where to draw the line, and knowing when to calm down in order to ensure that you don’t go over the top – something which is equally applicable to legitimate substances.
I have to ask, have you also warned your daughters never to go near alcohol, or is that acceptable because it’s legal? I would also ask if you’ve ever actually tried any of these substances you judge, or are you basing your opinions on media scaremongering and unsubstantiated sound bites?
I too have 2 daughters still at school. As a Criminal Lawyer I know exactly what is involved in illegal drugs, and just how F**king dangerous they are, modern skunk included. They have been lectured long and hard about them. Any of you libertarian types want to come down the cells with me and meet the morons who have fried whatever brains they had with skunk, whizz, or E; or the 25 year olds with no nostrals and heart murmurs because of all the Coke?
However I favour Legalisation, because in the cells next to them are those equally ruined by alcohol. The legal status or otherwise of these drugs is an irrelevence to those who take them.
The plus side of legalisation is it can be quality controled and (in the current climate taxed)! The most vicious criminals in the country are the high end drugs dealers, which is why people steal to pay them etc. Legalisation will put them out of business. The GDP of Liverpool would collapse and they would have to go back to nicking hub caps. After all Al Capones attempts to go legit after prohibition were farcical.
I am now in my 60s, many friends of mine who smoked cigarettes are dead, those that drunk to much are also dead, I miss them everyday. A lot of my friends have smoked dope all their life, their brains are well shot, but the saving grace is they don’t notice it, they say people are just picking on them, paranoid? I miss their old self. Just a wanted to say it.
117Alibarbs says:
April 23, 2009 at 4:07 pm
“It’s all about knowing where to draw the line, ”
Agent99 –The problem is the light drugs lead into the more heavy drugs and I have seen 1st hand the effects this can have particularly with females looking to score their next ‘hit’. They seel anything to get the money to do it.
“I have to ask, have you also warned your daughters never to go near alcohol, or is that acceptable because it’s legal? ”
Agent 99 – Yes absolutely!
I am a recovering alcoholic (I no longer drink nearly 2 years now). I am still utterly ashamed to admit that fact but still better to be open and honest. It took me years to see it I had the problem but I did and I have and thats the first step and I have never looked back since.
My employer is also aware and supports me.
I am almost at retirement age and I am scared of alcohol and I am scared of drugs I know how they can easily take your life over. I do not know for sure my daughters have not taken anything who ever does? I believe they have not and I hope they have not but I just try to make sure they don’t go there if possible.
Alibarbs did not single out your post for any other reason than you asked some good questions which I have answered.
So you’ve warned them of the terrors of alcohol then? Or scared them shitless about nicotine? The only difference is that at the moment to govt doesn’t get its cut.. hey, perhaps there’s the way out of some of this financial mess!!
Please don’t go there Guido, Damian Mc Bride is far too powerful to be taken on!
This attitude, Agent 99, is why the United Condom was taken over by Nufascist with total ease!
Kids need 2 things, love and honesty!
They probably respect you for your view, but at the end of the day they will do what they want!
Yep I have warned them about Alcohol, and Tobacco.
Oh yes I Forgot Tobacco, THE Pre cursor Drug, never met a drugie that did not smoke.
Death penalty to all class A drug dealers.
10 years mandatory for the rest and strip them of every assett they ever had to pay for the rehibilitation of the sufferers.
They destroy countless decent lifes every year, they don’t give a crap, just take the huge profits – Hang em!
I would also increase the age for alcohol to 21 as it is in the states and imprison anyone knowingly found selling to minors for 10 years and up the age for smoking.
It’s time we stopped trivialising something that has a seriously destructive effect on society.
Drugs, including alcohol abuse tears families apart, it doesnt just destroy the user but the whole family including children and fragments society, all this `oh it’s not that big a deal with certain drugs` just chip away undermining the menace that they are.
Yes but in a majority of cases it doesn’t have a negative affect. This ‘drugs are evil and will kill you’ message is the same as the ‘speed kills’ message the government keeps banging on about. Both are a load of bollocks.
Heaven forfend they stay off the crack & smack themselves. Pot doesn’t hurt a fly. Lumping them all together is woefully misrepresentative. E’s don’t kill, Trips don’t kill. Billy, Smack, Crack, jellies, solvents, (tanning lotion – I shit you not), charley are all well problematic.
Pot – hell it’s safer than a pack of revels.
So according to hang em all, everyone has to live their lives based on the weakness and lack of willpower that some people suffer from, in spite of countless others knowing when to draw a line (no pun intended). The fact that you think someone should be executed regardless of the fact that different circumstances arise says far more about you than it ever could these laws.
I don’t wish to be confrontational, but I think you have serious issues if you think execution should be a valid solution for anything other than murderers, rapists and perpetrators of serious violent crimes, and even then there can always be mitigating circumstances.
HangEmAll. Our troops in Afghanistan protecting those poppy fields might think your views a trifle harsh.
The Earth is indeed flat!
Who would bother to argue with you on that one!
Yes that is exactly the response that will make people go out and do drugs. Firstly parents lie to children about the evils of drugs and don’t even give them a proper debate, the first time that they get a sniff (no pun intended) they experiment, they do and there is nothing you can do about it. They then realise that you as a parent are full of shit and then you have lost them. They will lie to you, keep secrets from you and you will no longer be in control. There is not ONE country in the world that has won the war on drugs, not even Thailand where the punishment IS death, so if you think spinning a lie to you kids will stop them you have lost the battle.
I have done copious amounts of drugs in my time and there has been no side effect apart from having my mind opened and maybe to much of a good time, granted some peoples minds should not be opened under any circumstance because they are of a weak mind (these are the people that are prone to schizophrenia, alcohol can also do the same job as illegal drugs). Those who realise that life is about moderation will understand what I am saying. I mean how can you do drugs all the time when you have a job? I think you would find that you would be unemployed pretty quick, and there is the point.
It is not the drugs that are the problem but the society that takes them. Escapism for a want of a word, and what you may ask are they escaping from? The mindless drudgery of life? The lies and bigotry of society? To forget a situation that you feel cannot be avoided? I for one would love to go to an opium den for the next 14 months until the election is called. My mind is far more enjoyable in many cases than the real world.
We cannot be held responsible for the actions of people who would choose to abuse themselves (which actually is fairly self perpetuating). People who are weak of mind will always falter and I for one take no responsibility for them, they are not the same as me, we are not all not the same. There are far to many of us on this planet and it is therefore surely a trial of life as to whether we make use of it (I was going to say good use but that then is subjective). Yes a death is sad especially in someone young, but then why are so many kids killing themselves in Neath? We cannot outlaw a depressed mind. All you need is love said John Lennon, sadly he was wrong, what we need is to give young people the real facts about life (but neither should we give them to many as I think half the fun is working it out yourself), not the PC bollocks that is indoctrinated into them at school or by the MSM.
I have had this debate with many people and I know that there are some that will NEVER be convinced of my philosophy. I never intended to to go on so much about this one but I cant help it. So sorry if I made sweeping statements. I am sure that there is an entire book you could write about this (indeed I think have been), and I haven’t even started in America yet were drug users are put in prison and hired out to private firms to do work.
At the end of the day we are born alone and we die alone the bits in the middle are ours to make, to whatever end they may be. Morals, self control and conviction in oneself are my codes. And for ME that works and I sleep easy, especially after a nice spliff
If you are arguing, which you clearly are, to not only maintain the status quo, but to become even more extreme and Saudi Arabian like in your determination of sentencing then you are arguing in favour of the enrichment of drug dealers. If a drug dealer were to read your post he would clap you on the back for arguing on his behalf.
We have tried your way and it has failed miserably.
Surely we should cut off the drug dealers’ money supply?
I went to Eton in the late 80′s and never had any experience of anyone taking any drugs at all. Nor buggering anyone either.
You all think we all spent our entire time high on drugs whilst buggering each other incessantly. Because that’s what all the msm say. Ad nauseam.
Not true of course. But then nothing happening does not make a good story does it? Perhaps you might do some research and get the story right?
You either agree that adult human beings are autonomous agents responsible for their own welfare, or you don’t. It is my business, and mine along, what I put into my body. Should I want to drink bleach, it is none of your damn business. All the criminality and gangsterism flows from prohibition – which has never, and will never, work. Mentioning children is a red herring. The bottom line is that by objecting to ‘drugs’ you generate criminality and interfere with people’s freedom to do as they wish with their own person.
One imagines it’s because the big fish aren’t getting any of the revenue illegal drugs raises. At least not as far as we know. Or is that unduly cynical?
If the big fish had more brains than a sprat, they would realise that legislation:
a) Cuts police costs
b) Cuts prison costs
c) Cuts court costs
d) Saves billions lost to theft
e) Raises VAT revenue
THe last should light a bulb, but we know that the top three have, how can one say it, an intertia all their own.
There is too many people in this country making a legal living out of illegal drugs they won’t want to be out of a job will they ?
There are too many people in this country full stop. If the authorities are that anti, why are recreational drugs cheaper and more readily available on the inside of a prison than on the streets, where regular access is far from reliable!
Maybe if Jacqui had smoked some stronger dope while at university she wouldn’t be such a shite home secretary!
Maybe if she stopped fucking smoking it and stepped into the boring old world of reality for a second she’d realise what a total fucking mess her beloved Labour party have made of the UK.
Fuck off – that’s insulting to pot heads
Dope dealers get so long because they have to be pretty major dealers to get anywhere near court.
As opposed to minor rapists. Just the tip, just for a second.
Think about it like this. A drug dealer could supply one person per minute. It’s much harder for a rapist to get a victim, and takes them a bit longer than 1 minute to actually do the deed. After that, they usually can’t get it up for a while.
Anonymous says:
“Think about it like this. A drug dealer could supply one person per minute.”
—————–
A stupid drug dealer living in Leith maybe.
I’m sure that people who complain the loudest about drugs have had the least exposure to them…
I have to agree in part with Tom. I actually had a friend who was a drug dealer. In my experience drug dealers are by and large a vicious, selfish hardened criminal. They’re not all “well, I only sell weed, you know man, nice and harmless”. Most are gang members. Most will carry guns and knives. Most will think nothing of terrorizing their “clients”. They’ll give you drugs on credit, then when you find you can’t pay up because you’re a bit short they’ll threaten to harm your family. They’ll sell the drugs that will eventually kill you.
My friend went to prison, not for dealing, but for burglary. Hell, if you’re going to do one crime, you may as well do another.
He was eventually shot dead, with his own gun. Not by another dealer or a rival gang member, but by his girlfriend, after he beat the shit out of her once too often.
If legalising cannabis means people are no longer funding thugs like him, then I’m all for it, but yes, in many cases they do deserve to go to jail longer than rapists
Indeed. We need to get natural drugs out of the hands of these evil and vicious dealers and allow free men and women to use these natural products as they wish, so long as they do not cause injury, harm or loss.
This person was a friend of yours Alien8n? Sorry, but your comments are nonsense – there are good and bad drug dealers, just like there are good and bad everything. Your generalisations suggest a horrific degree if ignorance of the world outside your own little bubble.
I call bullshit. If he was such a Hunt then why were you friends with him? Could it be because you too are a vicious psycho Hunt? Of course it is, but with you it’s ok. At least you’re not a drug dealer.
Yes, there are good and bad, but in my experience even the good ones have to work with the bad ones. Another friend of mine who was also a drug dealer I’d describe as a good one, only sold pot. The people he bought from however would sell anything. One of my best friends who smoked pot went round once while my other friend was in the process of buying. He nearly got his brains blown out by the supplier’s pistol that was placed against his forehead.
Charlie, he was a friend because I went to school with him. And lets be honest, rather a friend than on the end of his knife
Most (addictive) drug dealers are highly motivated to generate new sales leads and create new customers, because they are drug users themselves and deal to finance their own addiction. It’s easier than burglary. When the vastly expensive machinery of justice takes a drug dealer off the streets and puts them in a vastly expensive prison, they create an opportunity for others to fulfill the demand that they were fulfilling, that is no longer fulfilled and that doesn’t go away.
For example, before doctors were prevented from prescribing maintenance doses of heroin to individual addicts, the total number of registered heroin addicts in the entire UK could be counted in the hundreds. Once heroin was no longer available from any legal source, a new self-sustaining and incredibly lucrative (for the major importers and wholesalers) industry was created overnight. There are now hundreds of thousands of heroin addicts, the vast majority of whom are consumed by their addiction and burgling your house to fund it, selling their bodies on your street for the same reason, or actively marketing and selling addictive drugs to others (who will in turn burgle your house, sell their body or… sell drugs). The lack of quality control has massive public health implications and costs, the associated turf wars and gang violence is the inevitable consequence of their being no legal framework for resolving commercial disputes between the individuals and organisations that participate in this vile trade, and of course the numbers of users and abusers of their wares can and will only grow. Take out a kingpin, and all you achieve is raising the price of the drugs in the short term, increasing profit for others and attracting new greedy criminals to the wholesale trade.
To all of this cost and harm, we now have to add the flower of British youth in Afghanistan fighting and dying at great expense in blood and treasure against an enemy who are ultimately funded by this vast market in misery that the politicians created against the carefully considered advice of experts back in the 1950s and early 1960s (there was a Royal Commission).
Of course, legalisation and a return to prescription of regulated and pharmaceutically pure heroin would kill the illegal heroin trade overnight, along with all the attendant acquisitive crime and violence, not to mention cost. It might significantly damage the funding stream of the Taliban as well, for what it is worth. However, the kicker is that it would also at a stroke remove the raison d’etre of a huge anti-drugs “industry”, consisting of a vast number of the great and the good, all of whom have careers and existences that entirely depend on the existence of a vibrant and undiminished drugs trade. Who’d be a drugs czar on £150,000 a year the day the state announces the War on Drugs is over? Hence the comment that the one thing the Drugs Kingpins and the Anti-Drug Kingpins have in common is that they are trenchantly in favour of the status quo as far as drug laws are concerned. And with vested interests like that, and hundreds of thousands of people who would potentially be looking at redundancy notices and the idea that their life’s enthusiastic work to date had in fact been entirely counterproductive or at best utterly pointless in most cases, how likely do you think it is that common sense will ever be allowed to prevail?
I suppose the current crisis in the public finances does provide an opportunity in this regard. But I bet it won’t be taken…
As a police officer I can say that I have come across many a drug dealer and user. The top end dealers are nothing but vicious crooks who would kill their grandmother for an extra few quid. Those lower down the supply chain are hooked themselves and sell to so-called recreational users. I have seen 14 yr olds totally out of it who are street dealing for those higher up the supply chain, and to earn a few quid for their next fix. I have never seen a 14 yr old waiting on a street corner selling alcohol.
The so-called recreational often find their recreational habit soon spins out of control. Yes I know that that can happen to alcohol as well. The problem being is that generally drugs are more addictive. My own stepson is 31 and looks like a 50 yr old with scabs all over his face etc. He has only ever used cannabis and is now totally reliant on it to survive. When he was in the army, and only drunk alcohol, it was easily under control.
As an ex-navy man, I have also dealt with the top of the chain in the Caribbean. These people have zero scruples. They ‘employ’ poor people to do the donkey work and get killed or arrested while living in luxury themselves.
Do you honestly think that if drugs were legalised, all the scum who sell them now will suddenly become model citizens, start paying their taxes etc etc? No they wont. They only live for themselves, and couldnt give a stuff about a dead junkie as there will always be another idiot willing to take their place.
Agreed.
The Government should now be planning selling licenses to reputable companies to supply marijuana at least to the UK market.
As we all know, the grass market in the UK is enormous – just take a look at the tonnage seized at ports over the past 5 years.
All that grass is not being smoked by a handful of hippies on a Shropshire commune.
With the country on the brink of economic ruin, a valuable revenue stream & fledgling industry such as marijuana cannot be ignored by the State for too much longer.
There is too much money in the business – & who do you want controlling that business & revenue in the UK – licensed reputable traders or organised criminals?
PLUS If we’re all stoned we’re less likely to roadblock ministerial cars, pour petrol through the air vents and burn the fuckers in the back seat.
Endearing image you conjure up – I had a fleeting flash of that Cooper woman & her horrible pudgy, sallow husband as the targets.
I dont know why, they are equally as odious as the rest but they did spring to mind first….
I doubt that TATA Jaguar will be fitting fire suppression technology into Ministerial limosines any time soon?
Mr Ned no but I have seen two druggies try to kill each other over a tiny bit of the stuff they use. And of course trying to drive a car while under the influence of cannabis.
they already do mrs righty right.
GW pharmacueticals have a licence to grow medicinal cannabis which they turn into a product called sativex. I should know because I have made lot of fucking money out of their shares!
sativex has been prescribed since 2001 and is going through its final stages of testing in america. it’s gonna be a £8 share so fill your boots.
recession, what recession?
“organised criminals”?
You mean this shower of a govt is ORGANISED?
why should it be licensed? Its a seed that grows when you put it in some dirt, so I say legalise growing small quants for personal consumption thereby decimating the illegal market and making it unattractive to gangsters. No tax for the thieving cnuts in Whitehall though.
It is NATURE for fucks sake. Only a an anally retentive twat would want to outlaw nature.
BTW the above is agreeing with you pond life..
By organised criminals I presume you mean HMG.
Who benefits from making criminals out of recreational drug-users?
1/ Tabloid press selling extra copy through fear-mongering
2/ Organised criminal gangs able to control supply, dictate prices and operate without any quality-auditing whatsoever. [This arrangement has ensured that most dope-smokers have, in the last few years, been inhaling cannabis that's been sprayed with glass-particles so as to bump up the weights.]
3/ Politicians able to make electoral hay from the above, knowing that the most likely effect of their punitive and costly interventions will be to make matters worse, thus ensuring more support for the next artificial “solution”.
Who pays for the criminalisation of drug-users?
1/ Everybody else.
“The current Home Secretary says she smoked “weak” dope. If they had been caught and convicted they would probably not have got where they are today.”
Alright you don’t have to rub it in Guido.
“weak” dope
Did she inhale?
She must have done
Before ‘accidentally’ becoming a Labour MP in 1997 (whodathunkit?) she was a home economics teacher.
I cant imagine a lefty teacher not having tried ‘pot’ at some time in their past, ‘uni’ days
Odd that it will never be the Tories who take the sensible step – nor the Stalinists, for that matter. That just leaves the LibDems – who’ll never get in.
The step will be taken as soon as they believe their are enough votes in it!
There, there there!
Must get back to the onions
Ooh. Crime and punishment. I do not represent the masses on this one.
In my opinion, the law and order system is too busy dealing with people who are in breach of acts of statutes than those who have committed acts which breach common law.
Common law offences include those where there is demonstrable harm, loss or injury.
Then there’s the balance between rehabilitation and retribution. I do not believe in imprisonment, as I believe that punishes the loved ones of the imprisoned more than it punishes the person being sentenced.
Controversial, but I think the old traditions recounted by tourist guides at Edinburgh’s Mercat Cross sound most sensible – a good old fashioned flogging (to put it mildly). This could be followed by compulsory psychological care and re-education.
Far cheaper rehabilitation and retribution, both.
I wonder if any of the readers of this blog can suggest any candidates for a public flogging and humiliation session?
“I think.. ..a good old fashioned flogging (to put it mildly). This could be followed by compulsory psychological care and re-education.”
How would all this help the ‘loved ones’ you were earlier so concerned about?
“a good old fashioned flogging (to put it mildly)”
Just like the Taliban then?
“How would all this help the ‘loved ones’ you were earlier so concerned about?”
You tell me… I don’t see how sending someone away for seven years to play Playstation and go to the gym is a punishment to the person experiencing it. I do see how it punishes wives and children.
So, if we must make like we’re discussing on the pages of the broadsheets, under my fantasy land ain’t gonna happen model, the ‘offender’ wouldn’t be absent for seven years and the loved ones wouldn’t be going through grief and absence, would they?
No, a good flogging, then the ‘offender’ could be back at home. No grief of absence for the loved ones, a punishment to remember for the ‘offender’. Hopefully enough of a deterrant.
I think it’s a good plan for a fantasy alternative.
The only snag I see with it is if someone is an ‘offender’ with a penchant for BDSM.
If they’re into BDSM we could always give them …… the comfy chair.
Quo Vadis,
Class A seriously addictive drugs, all dealers already hanged, no costs there.
10-15 years for all other dealers, no if’s, no buts,
It puts pressure on the wife not to get involved with or have children with a drug dealer in the first place, it makes the drug dealer realise that he may lose his wife if he continues.
That is a deterent, it also stops the scum from breeding more problem children while he is inside, which saves money in the long run.
I agree with you there mate, for minor offences then enforced work programmes where a debt is repaid to society or fines , for more serious ones then corporal punishment followed by enforfrced work programmes and for murder then its the noose .
Whats wrong with that ?
sounds fair.
But ONLY after a true and fair and just trial in a common law court de jour in front of a jury of 13 of his/her peers.
Too right Quo,
The statutes do not apply to flesh and blood men and women anyway, only their legal representative – a piece of stationary.
We sentient, flesh and blood men and women are free to use nature in any way we wish, as long as it does not cause harm, injury or loss.
(smiles) I’m sure you’ll get this reference…
I do not understand and you can have my birth certificate if you wish.
*grin*
89 hang ‘em all! – I just did a Google on hanging in the UK as a rebuttal to the Taleban reference. I knew the last hanging was in the 1960′s.
What I did not know is that it was still on the statue books until 1998!!
Until then, it was still an option for offences of treason, apparently.
No wonder New Labour got rid of that one (he says, getting back to Labour-hating)
Much as I hate Zanulabour, it was the EU that got rid of that.
For those into bondage that is a great night out, bondage session, drugs and a free public flogging and humiliation session.
Please get back to dishing the dirt on our socialist chums.
Is that because generally it is easier to prove the drugs one?
Guido – whistfully remembering the old days??? you cant go back !!!
Legalise it!
And Im the *real* Mr Nice
..ignore the imposter above!
I’ve read all of your books H,
Many Thanks indeed Sir.
The whole drug thing is a farce simply because rather than rely on actual scientific evidence and emperical study by experts in the field, drug laws are created and enforced by knee-jerk politicians and crusty old Law lords who wouldnt know how to make a sandwich let alone produce a logical coherent drug policy in a modern society.
Ironically you will find that most of them enjoy getting pissed fairly often but dont understand that alcohol is a far more dangerous and socially undermining drug than cannabis and other street recreational drugs put together.
The Hoons….
I hope this is the correct use of the term “Hoon” ?
Indeed it is.
Mr Marks, is that REALLY you?
As for the legalisation debate, well there is little more I can add- except this:
Would those against legalisation consider going the whole hog and outlawing both alcohol and tobacco?
After all, if we can’t have a level playing field for those substances presently prohibited, perhaps we should outlaw booze and fags and go the other way.
Erm…hang on, prohibition of alcohol in the USA wasn’t a roaring success was it now?
For a moment I thought you were going to say ‘wouldn’t know how to roll a joint’ !
They probably wouldnt, but I bet they all know how to snort coke off a whores bottom!
Sorry to be O/T but this is a must read and Fraser hits it on the head!
“Small wonder that the shadow chancellor looked bilious as he listened to this horror story unfold. Because the tax bombshells which Mr Darling revealed in his armoury are primed to explode in the Tory years. As he knows, the ‘efficiency savings’ he forecast in his budget are illusory. Whitehall does not do ‘efficiency’. If Mr Brown had sought to design a budget to make life hell for the next Tory government, he could scarcely have done better. As Labour is likely to be out of power for the seven years mapped out in this Budget, the whole document can be seen as a straightforward booby trap for the Conservatives.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/the-week/3557061/part_3/politics.thtml
Well it does not take a genius to work that out. From a purely party political viewpoint it was always going to be designed to look like it is a rotten steaming pile of shit for the tories.
I could not give a shit about that, what I do give a shit about is that it is a steaming pile of rotten shit for all of us. And we do not have the Parliamentary privilege that the corrupt Parliamentarians have.
“I have taken tea, lots of tea – & if you ask me I am going to tell you. And biscuits”
Sorry, I had a Rutles flashback there……..
Drug law in this country is a joke. Experts classify addiction as a disease, and yet we respond with criminal punishment. There is historical precedent for this, it’s how people used to respond to leprosy.
Our prisons are overcrowded, our police are overworked; the fact is that the ‘war’ on drugs adopted by the US and aped by the UK works for no one and punishes those who are most vulnerable.
Fortunately demographics are on our side. My generation dose not give a fuck about people dropping E on a Saturday night. My guess is that in fifty years we’ll look back at this era of prohibition with a sense of puzzlement.
Why criminalise people for doing something that’s pretty harmless and certainly a lot safer than binge drinking?
There’s a lot of bollocks talked about ecstasy – if it was killing people left, right and centre, then people wouldn’t take it.
Politicians are so afraid of the tabloids that they will always overrule the scientific experts on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Incidentally, how is it misusing ecstasy by dropping a pill or two during a night’s clubbing? That’s what they’re for.
Yeah well the fuckwits in power always lie about these things don’t they. I mean look at the “official” legal drugs. Pharmacuetical companies warn us of the “side effects” so as to mislead us about them. They are NOT side effects of the chemical concoction… They are the EFFECTS of the chemical concoction.
I’ll stick with energy and nature ta very much!
Your argument falls down quite easily. How many people drink alcohol? What % of these get into trouble through alcohol? The % is quite small actually.
How many people take the ‘safe’ cannabis, and then go on to stronger stuff? What % of these become addicts?
I dont know the answer exactly but I would think that the % of drinkers who become addicts compared to the % of druggies who become addicts is quite small.
I suggest Guido you get back to discussing scumbag politicians as if it is suggested you support drug use then your opponents will severely attack you. It would be a pity after all your good work.
“I don’t know the answer” – but don’t let that stop you being an expert!
Some figures on two drugs
Alcohol – 22,000 premature deaths per annum , Road Traffic Deaths 1,500 per annum, cost to society £18.5 billion per annum, not to mention the violence experienced in all town centres.
Ecstasy – 10 deaths per annum.
(Source: Nutt, D.J. (2006) ‘A tale of two Es’ pp. 315-317 in Journal of Psychopharmacology No. 20, Vol. 3.)
I suspect the alcohol deaths are understated and the ecstasy deaths overstated (familes don’t like alcohol on the death certificate and those few death certs that mention ecstasy include details of a number of other substances which are far more likely to have been responsible for the deaths).
Given that we have chosen to give organised crime a state sponsored monopoly in the manufacture, distribution and retail of ecstasy it is a remarkably safe substance. Those of us with kids need to be honest with them and give them accurate information which allows them to make informed decisions.
Because those that like these recreational drugs are generally free spirited, entrepreneurial types and so are a theat to the government so must be kept under lock and key, with their reputations ruined so that uninformed middle england can think they are evil and not listen to their logic in any area of government policy.
It’s the same as catholics banning things like sex before marriage or with contraception so that they have to be kept in the marriage industry.
Um, Guido, have you just given the Labour Party the ammo to dismiss you out of hand from here on in as “that nutter who wants to legalise ecstasy”?
Sorry but on this one, you’ve lost me.
Have you tried it? No? How would you know, then?
Anonydrug
‘Have you tried it?”
Yours is a totally ludicrous argument
If Neo Labour, or the Conservatives for that matter, want to continue to appear to be the Emporer with no clothes then fine – let them look like the fringe nutters of society who cannot accept that drug laws in the UK have to change.
The drug laws are ignored now – they are ignored because of the BS that successive Governments have said & done about drugs.
People being scared to point out ridiculousnesses because of power-monopolizing technocrats calling them nutters is how the UK got to this ridiculous point.
And How, exactly, is the labour party condemning anyone a BAD thing? I would feel very proud and happy to have the labour party dismiss or criticise me. If the labour party is against me, then I am probably doing the right thing!!!
All I have to say about this is
35 years daily and counting….no harm done (I’m told).
In that time I started drinking. Drank for many years, frequently to excess. Stopped drinking – in that hepatically it is no longer possible for me. Good luck and cheers to those that can – may your glasses always be full. I gave so generously to the treasury that I didn’t notice it was making me ill.
I’d like to think that my remaining bit of harmless weedy enjoyment could be conducted using material from a tracable source, at a lower cost (even if heavilly taxed) and still allow me to contribute to the small pile of coppers in the corner of a dank and unlit vault that is the nation’s wealth. It is ridiculous that Joe Schmo in the middle should be treated worse than a sex criminal in law. All part of the Carrollian NuLab “vision” I guess.
£100.00 to anybody who can get quality acid into the Fuehrerbunker water jugs btw…..
“£100.00 to anybody who can get quality acid into the Fuehrerbunker water jugs btw…..”
Judging by the “No10TV” MPs expenses youtube he did the other day, I think somebody’s writing to you now with their bounty claim.
Actually that makes sense , Browns body popping was exactly what you would expect with someone on E !
Explains the jaw thing too.
They should all conduct their peace talks whilst on E. in fact I think all international diplomacy should happen on E.
Well the RAF fought the Battle of Britain on Speed ( benzedrine) and the Japanesse fought it on Crystal meth ( methamphetamine). Hitler himself had regular dosed of Meth. In fact Some armies still issue their troops with stimulants to keep them more alert. Makes them more trigger happy as well which might explain a few things !
Man in the street. But the best armed forces in the world…ie the British do not give their personnel drugs to make them fight better do they?
Ex-navy, 28 yrs served.
No, but they have tested ACID on our service men.
This is great:-
How long do you get if drop an E and rape Hazel Blears while smoking a joint.
2 years and a free trip to Specsavers…..
ROFLMFAO XD
Brilliant!
Why? Because more people deal with reefer than rape (happily), so it’s more of a moneyshot to concentrate on getting reefer offenders to jail when your country runs private prisons.
As the UK very enthusiastically, very poorly and either corruptly or massively inefficiently does through the PFI.
And having those sorts of laws on the books is also a good way to make sure your police have easy access when they want to search or harass problematic types whose demographic has a reputation for liking reefer. Everybody loves it, not everybody gets done for it.
Try this one on pills http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfq_A8nXMsQ
Come on Guido, you know the reason, it’s your old friend the pork barrel. The annual cost of the “war on drugs” in the USA is $40bn. That’s a lot of people’s jobs and a lot of vested interests. There is a horrible symbiosis between drug cartels and drug enforcement. One keeps the price up and the other keeps them in business. All a bit like the relationship between unions and personnel departments in the bad old days of UK industry.
Voila
Bingo, follow the money and you find the truth.
Prohibition=profit.
War=profit.
Large corperations and corrupt politicians=profit.
bankrupt countries not being able to afford politicians any more=priceless
Maybe Ed Ball’s “so weak” comment was a dig at the quality of her gear, then.
Drugs, what like aspirin? Caffeine?
The WORD “drugs” is a bad starting point. Which drugs, or at least which characteristics? If you want to avoid risky and addictive drugs, there are legal ones you should avoid (booze and ciggies) and illegal ones you should consider benign (LSD). Or are you just trying to follow the law blindly?
‘It is a public health problem, not a criminal / judicial problem.’
To an extent it is both. As is the sale of alkyhol. There is a lot of bollocks talked about both too.
Labour didn’t need any substances to become completely mental, it is a natural low.
Guido on the other hand…
Blacks used to be a great place to buy tents.
walking gear, boots, socks, primus stoves, rucksacks and they came from Greenock.
do they do 200,000 mosquito nets per chance?
There is no such thing.
I want to know what the fuck Gordon Brown has been taking
My money, and giving it to his banker friends….
Fully agree Guido.
Its always the people that have the strongest opinions on drugs that have limited to zero experience with them. Funny that.
See my previous posts. I have very strong opinions and have quite a bit of experience as well.
If ever we needed to legalise and then tax recreational drugs, surely now is that time?
I “vaguely” recall coping with the 80′s recession with the help of 3 quid a tab acid. It was proper acid back then, mind, not this weak crap the current fey generation have. Wimps.
I like wine.
Here’s a splendid one:
Wine is fine but whiskey’s quicker. Hat tip: Mr Oswald Osbourne.
I don’t get what all the fuss is about.
NuLabour legalized stealing from the taxpayer and legalized police violence on the electorate, it legalized invading a sovereign country on a false pretext. Whats a few E tablets?
If GlaxoSmithKline could sell weed, Ahmed the shoe bomber couldnt.
I disagree its a public health issue though, if you cant control your useage, your a pansie, if you commit crime to feed it, Mail Readers should be able to hang you.
Everyones happy
Almost a good compromise.
“I have never seen two people on pot get in a fight because it is fucking IMPOSSIBLE. “Hey, buddy!” “Hey, what?” “Ummmmmmm….” End of argument.” – Bill Hicks
No more Jacqui Smiths making it to Home Sec. Good stuff.
Framing your argument in terms of the behaviour od senior politicians isn’t going to win anyone over.
Sorry Guido but I’ll have to differ.A close friend,an NHS consultant psychiatrist,told me that of his younger patients,at least half suffered from cannabis induced psychosis.
Yeah this is pretty much what Ive heard as well
Im with you on this one.I knew someone who indulged in the old wacky backy
and ended up in the funny farm(still there).
Oh you’ve heard it then, it must be true.
“Im with you on this one.I knew someone who indulged in the old wacky backy
and ended up in the funny farm(still there).”
I know someone who ate asparagus, and they ended up in the funny farm (and died there).
BAN ASPARAGUS NOW
(PS don’t bother posting again until you actually have something to say, rather than some bullshit anecdote which tells us nothing).
How do you Know it is not the way of life we are living causing the psychosis and the weed just brings this underlying problem to the surface.Perhaps the cause of psychosis should be investigated closer to home.
often the parents in my opinion
The reason for this is twofold.
1) Genetic predisposition. The user is already susceptible to psychosis, just that cannabis can be 1 trigger (not the only one, they may still have had a psychotic event even without the use of cannabis, just at a later point in their life)
2) Strain of cannabis smoked. There are 2 active ingredients in cannabis, the newer varieties (such as skunk) contain more psychosis inducing ingredients whereas the older weak varieties were shown to have a calming effect on already psychotic individuals. In the 80′s some schizophrenics smoked dope to relieve their psychoses.
Solution, legal growth and use of the weaker varieties until the stronger varieties are no longer the predominant variety on the market.
And it might be spread by badgers.
Please explain further rather than leaving some quasi-argument. The active chemicals in modern skunk are the same as existed in cannabis in the eighties. Just the quantity of active chemical has increased.
As for this “half of young psychological patients having smoked cannabis” bollocks. More than half of young people who haven’t got psychological problems have smoked cannabis as well. The proportion of young in psychiatric care who smoked cannabis is actually lower than the national average.
At least get your facts right.
This is not ordinary weed though is it? It as artificially cultivated and then chemically treated.
Too much of anything is bad for you. I mean look at how many teenagers are now suffering from severe liver damage due to continuous binge drinking.
I would legalise ordinary, natural cannabis.
This is the statistics of the asylum.
You cannot say it is “cannabis-induced” psychosis – it is psychosis.
So half of them smoked cannabis, therefore it’s the cannabis. If this is what passes for science in this country these days, no wonder we’re so far up shit creek…..
Try engaging the brain cell next time bergen! (PS for what it’s worth, my father is a consultant, and he says the jury is out on whether cannabis induces psychosis or impending psychosis encourages cannabis use).
He won’t know the cause and effect.
Do patients with psychosis tend to smoke cannabis for example?
Did he study in Berkeley?
Also a good way to up the tax take without forcing the well paid to cough up.
I recent the copters that fly over my place with heat detectors looking for dope factories in residential homes, it always after 10.30 and usually in the middle of Newsnight.
Wonder if there will be any suicide bombers at Barclay’s AGM
all the people I know who have either being drinking or taking drugs consistently over a 20 year period are fucked both mentally and physically
Take a look at our local entertainer
Bullshit!
whatever
You’re going to lose a few punters with this one Guido. If you want to keep your core audience happy you’re going to have to stick to the Daily Mail line on pretty much everything.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, I agree with you.
I think he will gain more than he loses.
There was me thinking the core audience here was libertarian / anarcho – capitalist state haters
Hey, we’re the people who believe in less government remember?
It’s you and your Stalinist buddies who want to control what colour socks I wear.
Proof that Guido is not a tame blogger.
Or a wise one on this issue. People don’t decide in abstract to try and take drugs; they’re persuaded, often by someone they know and respect and so every time an intelligent person argues this case it makes it easier for those who have a direct and vested financial interest in persuading people to take on these substances to succeed.
It’s the wrong debate; it’s not about liberties, it’s about serious and persistent damage to the vulnerable perpetrated by those who have a vested interest in inflicting that damage.
And you’ve just made 645 MPs very happy.
I take issue with your assumption that you can set the terms and limits of the drugs debate. Of course it is about personal freedom. MOST recreational drug users have not come to harm or caused harm whilst pursuing their drug use. Those that have, would have anyway.
Allowing personal cultivation of seeds for personal use would take the vast majority of users out of the statuary breach of controlled substances and the criminal and evil enterprise that thrives from that. Which if you take the care to follow the pyramid from the dealer to the top of the pyramid, leads to the intelligence services and the powered, moneyed elite. The American Government are the biggest narcotics dealers on earth. Why else has the massive industrial scale production of heroin and opium resumed at record levels in Afghanistan SINCE the fall of the Taliban? The Taliban almost completely eradicated the production of Opium in Afghanistan by the Summer of 2001.
Our own troops are used to protect and defend the convoys of opium to the head of the international narcotics gangs operating out of Russia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.
Fair point. I should have made it clear the limit of the debate should not sit around personal freedom.
But the activity of recreational drug users is not without its own consequence and you can’t simply hold that it is ‘without harm’ without considering what it is that users end up funding. An industry that thrives by turning a proportion of users into addicts and dealers or into folk with deep and abiding mental problems can’t be regarded as morally neutral.
“An industry that thrives by turning a proportion of users into addicts and dealers or into folk with deep and abiding mental problems can’t be regarded as morally neutral.”
I agree, the illegal prohibitionist drugs industry is morally abhorrent. However, many of the most morally horrible parts of the drug industry are directly caused by prohibition. For example, if drugs were regulated then a proportion of users would not get turned into dealers. For sure, addiction would still be a problem, but it would be on the periphery of the industry, no longer the driving force behind it. (And responsible users would pay via taxes for the professional treatment of said addicts.)
Hmm not really my pet subject but I do know that there’s an immense difference between smoking a bit of pot and being hooked on crack cocaine/heroin. The latter should never ever be legalised because the people hooked on it ruin their own and other people’s lives…I deal with those sort of addicts all the time because I work in the criminal justice system, and I can tell you for a fact that crack and heroin addicts are responsible for a hell of a lot of crime, violent and acquisitive. And I’ve yet to meet one who works, provides a proper home for their kids, or has any respect for themselves or anyone else……. As far as cannabis is concerned I’m surprised they haven’t legalised it, just so they can add a whopping amount of tax on it every budget, just like on fags and booze….
If you legalise heroin and make the environment to take it (free on NHS) a hospital type situation with correct supervision you remove the pushers and all the crime that goes with it. But you have to get the “correct situation” with the addicts in place, if you don’t you fail and they go back to dealers.
We did this up until 1973 I believe. We then had a much more manageable drug ‘problem’. The Heath Govt buggered it up like so many other things.
New Girl
well said!
Newgirl,
If you deal with crack addicts then you will be aware that, in the final analysis, they are their dealer’s bitch. Crack users are effectively ‘owned’ by their supplier. Surely the best way of deconstructing this abusive and health damaging relationship would be to take away from the drug seller the product they use to control the addicts?
Also, under the present system the illegality of drugs causes the users to operate in a clandestine manner. The first time the ill health of heavy users will come to the attention of the health services will be when the addict is near death.
I also believe the use of drugs in Britain would decrease if drugs were legalised. Currenltly drug dealers are running riot in this country.
It is time to highly regulate all narcotics. Coffee shops would be acceptable venues to distribute only cannabis and separate venues, perhaps pharmacies, could distribute prescriptions for class A drugs.
I have a job, a mortgage and a “normal” life. Very occasionally (3 or 4 times per year) I like to smoke crack because it’s the purest form of coke on the street, gives a great high and I love having filthy sex on it. Some of the powder I watch people put up their noses is clearly cut several times over and is a complete waste of money, so why bother?
Fortunately I have the capacity to understand the dangers of addiction and will never let myself become dominated by the drug. Of course many do not have this control so I do not condone the activity.
Legalise everything and provide comprehensive education in schools to teach kids the dangers.
It is an interesting example of a subject on which the left/right axis is wholly irrelevant & the statist/libertarian one at least interesting.
Legalise.
Most will find they’re pretty boring anyway.
Good work sticking this subject on here, the usual reactionary suspects are running around like headless half wits as their Pinup Boy seems to be batting for the ‘bad guys’.
Entertaining as always
Horses for course.
David Cameron, for all his faults, has at least broached this subject before: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002/may/17/davidcameron.politicalcolumnists
Agreed wholeheartedly.
And whilst it is a criminal problem, any attempts to solve the problem will be the wrong attempts for the wrong reasons.
If it were a health problem, the chances are that a solution might be found for educating people.
Ampers
Now we’ve done a bit of socially aware can we go back to trashing the government please? SO much more fun. Otherwise I’m going to get my nails done.
Guido I thought you had two youngsters, lets see how liberal you are in
about sixteen years, when shit happens, and you cant stop it
Shocked – keeping drugs illegal just increases the harm they cause. Guido’s youngsters will be no safer under prohibition, they will still be able to get the drugs but they will be more likely to be adulterated with god knows what.
A legalised framework would massively reduce the harm they cause.
Have a look at Transform’s website. They talk a lot of sense on this.
Oh my god cannabis!
Think of the children! Fer crying out loud….
What a completely hysterical and uninformed post , Shocked.
I’m sure someone with children would rather them do drugs than get raped?
Are you suggesting otherwise? … really?
Nice one Guido. I have been banging on about this for ages. It’s nice to see someone influential like yourself on the side of sanity.
Most front line politicians are completely hypocritical on this and will not allow a grown up debate but instead scream “SOFT ON TEH DRUGGZZ!!1″ at anyone who questions the completely screwed up orthodoxy.
This government must have taken enough dope to sink the Titanic judging by yesterday’s budget. Sink me!
Well, you only have to take one look at Jacqui Smith and Dave Cameron to realise that the effects of pot are devastating and lifelong. Whoever sold them their drugs needs locking up for a long time, a long long time.
Regulating drugs will not work, nor will it put the dealers/suppliers/growers out of business.
Fags, boose and fuel are all legal, but that has not stopped their being smuggled, nor improved the quality of the “product”.
Higher taxes ensure that.
And you can bet that government will tax (have to tax!!) any legalised drugs just as heavily as everything else, and thereby give all smugglers another revenue stream.
So the average sentence for selling someone joint is seven years?
It’s the attention to accuracy I think I most like about this site.
Never did me any harm – look where I got to, but I agree with Mr Fawkes drug dealing is an evil menace and they should all be locked up.
Is that OK.
Prohibition didn’t work out too well in America in the 20′s, did it? Legalise it, control it, tax it. Most of the problems are down to the shit it is cut with, or because folk don’t know exactly what they are getting.
If alcohol is an acceptable recreational drug, what the fuck is so different about cannabis?
The Penguin
What is cannabis cut with that causes “most of the problems”?
Henna, plastic, ghee, etc
Well said, Penguin.
The best satirical treatment of this minefield of hypocrisy, fear, bullshit and occasional common sense comes from South Park. Where else!
http://www.allabout-sp.net/?p=season12/1203
167Average joe says:
April 23, 2009 at 5:01 pm
What is cannabis cut with that causes “most of the problems”?
Reply
188Old Nick Heavenly says:
April 23, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Henna, plastic, ghee, etc
You are obviously using the wrong dealer.
Hilarious, Huge Embarrassment for Brown as sleaze watchdog rejects daily rate plan for MPs in new blow for Brown’s expenses reform.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1172730/Sleaze-watchdog-rejects-daily-rate-plan-MPs-new-blow-Browns-expenses-reform.html
Gordon Brown’s plan to give MPs a ‘clocking-in’ allowance was in doubt today after Britain’s anti-sleaze boss warned that the public would not tolerate it.
Sir Christopher Kelly, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said voters would not back a system where politicians were paid without receipts.
What is Brown thinking?
Wait, we have an anti-sleaze boss?
What the fuck does he do all day?
Sorry, must have dozed off….what did you say?
Lew Rockwell’s always good on drugs, e.g.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger159.html
I despair of ever getting a sensible policy. Some chief coppers have said decriminalisation would drastically cut petty crime. Doctors put forward plans based on actual science, but the government just puts its fingers in its ears and la la la la…
You probably recall Thailand even tried a “final solution” to the war on drugs, shooting over 3000 dealers “resisting arrest”. Whose brilliant idea was that? Thaksin Shinawatra. Come in. Make yourself at home. Buy a football club? Why not? What a nice man. Always smiling.
At least they stopped dealing!
Prohibition creates jobs!
And if it was legal and produced in the United Condom a lot of the morons who infest your street would think that it was oh so cool to work at the dope farm, coffee shop etc.
Legalize it – don’t criticize it
Legalize it and i will advertise it
Some call it tampee
Some call it the weed
Some call it Marijuana
Some of them call it Ganja
Legalize it – don’t criticize it
Legalize it and i will advertise it
Singer smoke it
And players of instruments too
Legalize it, yeah, yeah
That’s the best thing you can do
Doctors smoke it
Nurses smoke it
Judges smoke it
Even the lawyers too
Legalize it – don’t criticize it
Legalize it and i will advertise it
It’s good for the flu
It’s good for asthma
Good for tuberculosis
Even umara composis
Legalize it – don’t criticize it
Legalize it and i will advertise it
Bird eat it
And they leave it
Fowls eat it
Goats love to play with it
I think you better cut down on the weed, fuckface.
C.Moonshine, try this one;
to: the fuckface, think on you weed. I better cut you down.
see, that makes far more sense than your nasty little outburst.
sunshine? don’t make me laugh, you’re just a c’unt.
I started a discussion about cannabis on the old Webcameron website. It was read by 55,000 people, more I believe than any other discussion on the board, and I suspect, though I don’t know, that that might have been one reason they closed the old Webcameron down.
The thing I find most interesting about this is the superskunk myth. The idea that cannabis has increased in potency in recent years, that it is now more dangerous than it used to be. It’s bollocks. Cannabis has exactly the same effects now as it did 35 years ago. Cannabis of reasonable quality, which has all the effects of the strongest stuff you can get now, has been freely available in this country throughout my adult life.
The active ingredients haven’t changed, so why should the effects have changed? When it is less concentrated, people use more, and vice versa.
Think you’ll find the ingredients have changed.
Most weed is now cut with trace cocaine, sometimes opium.
Makes it more addicitve, you see….
210Pothead Pete says:
April 23, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Think you’ll find the ingredients have changed.
Most weed is now cut with trace cocaine, sometimes opium.
Makes it more addicitve, you see….
You also need to change your dealer.
Weed is cut with trace cocaine and opium? Why cut something cheap with something expensive?
Also you could only do this with solids – so stay away from the cheap stuff.
Anyone who says drugs are harmless has never taken them in large enough quantities to know otherwise.
Another flat earther
Water taken in large enough quantity will also kill you. so what is your point?
You would have thought with such a black hole of debt to fill the Government would actually be quite receptive to the idea of legalising some drugs and gaining precious tax revenue. Personally, I’d legalise cannabis, ecstacy and cocaine and begin providing services to deal with people’s addictions.
I went to school with Paul Dacre, in the same year as his younger brother Nigel, who used to be editor of news at ten.
I had my first joint in their house – I didn’t supply it. They didn’t seem anti-drug then!
[...] people won’t care about my opinions on drug usage in this country, but following on from a post I read over at Guido’s I thought I’d make a wee [...]
mans eagerness to ingest poisonous substances is what above all separates him from the rest of the great apes
Quick quick lets get back to anti-govt bashing, debating drugs is bad because I knew a guy and heard this anecdote on a train 10 years ago about how one joint will make you mental. PLEASE have some sense.
This nicely sums up the warped attitude of most people in this country
Many years ago I was nominated as one of our Unit Drugs Control Officers. To qualify, I was given a course on the issues.
Surprisingly, the Drug Squad Officers were very sympathetic toward users (note I do not use that other emotive term!)
It may surprise you potheads that the priority of enforcement agencies is to restrict, if not eliminate the criminality behind the SUPPLY of the rubbish!
Did you know that Cigarette manufacturers have been tooled up to produce Spliffs within hours of the weed being made legal……… and have been for the best part of 40 years!
Me? a user! Nope! I get high on an Aspirin! I’d make a rubbish junky!
Fifteen years ago I was forced to give up my beloved drinking. I’d pretty much caned it all my life and eventually a tipping point passed and I was well and truly hooked, joining the morning tipple brigade. It was a pretty ghastly experience, juggling a business, avoiding meetings with clients and all the other deception which goes on. There came a point of no choice when my doctor told me that death would be inevitable within a horrificly short space of time if I didn’t quit. Faced with that option what do you do? After a while all was rosy except for party’s and boozy gatherings which quite honestly turned into purgatory. They all had fun. I didn’t. So remembering the youthful joints and truly hilarious experiences on weed I got some. Result? All the pleasure of the pissheads, none of the hangover. Music which assumes an enhanced perception. As for watching Family Guy? The funniest thing on TV. And for me no sign of the addictive desire. OK, it’s all an illusion but isn’t that the point? However when it comes to the amounts young people tend to use we do have a problem. But it seems to be that or alcohol with them and at least you don’t od on a few spliffs. As a timed experiment, legalise it for over 21′s. Let’s see what happens. How many fights do stoned people start?
Cannabis is more than a “gateway” drug, its a major trigger for schizophrenia and clinical depression. One of my daughters “did cannabis” in her late teens and has suffered from the consequences ever since. Thanks, but keep them illegal and hang the suppliers – literally.
Alcohol is a major trigger for schizophrenia. It is also a gateway drug of sorts. People who snort coke do it when they are drinking not smoking dope.
We all know people who have had problems with drugs (indeed one of my best friends killed himself by an accidental heroin overdose) but keeping them illegal and hanging suppliers won’t work and it won’t help stop it happening again. Legalised controlled drugs would have saved the life of my friend, and with proper drugs education and control your daughter might never have taken it or at least not done so so young.
Hear, hear. This is an important topic Guido, please keep at it, the hypocrisy of our politicians on this issue is sickening.
Tackle the root causes of drugs, alcohol abuse, and other addictions, and then you can think about how to control the system, ie, criminal judicial part of it.
The Tories are right. Social responsibility and family breakdown need to be sorted. This will partly help people understand what their meaning is in life.
http://www.plenty2say.com
For me the dividing line is your relationship with other people as a result of your habbit. Just as not every drinker is violent or an alchoholic, not every drug user is a threat to the public or an addict. The key is taking responsibility for your own actions. If you want to get high in the privacy of your own home, that’s fine by me, but don’t expect me to pay for your rehab or not to beat the crap out of you if you try to steal my stuff to fund your habbit.
“Why does “intent to supply” a relatively harmless, though wrongly categorised class ‘A’ drug like Ecstasy, attract a stiffer sentence than “attempted rape”?”
Because money changes hands in free trade between free people creating private profit with no cut for the state. They don’t like that.
History shows you can pretty much do what you like, as long as you pay your taxes.
… It led to my now decades-long addiction to nicotine. I’ll also blame the Majestic Herb for my alcohol addiction, because as we all know booze is easier to obtain once you’re past un certain age. Who wants to be the middle-aged twat who hangs about Brixton Tube like the tourist one so does NOT want to be?
If cannabis were to be legalised, I’d be happier, less aggressive, more into ‘hey Man, lighten up’ and altogether a more productive member of society.
[You laugh at that 'productive' notion? When stoned, I've been able to focus on intricate tasks with a (quiet and non-offensive) ferociousness that doesn't in any way equate to my utter skattiness when inebriated.]
Here here!
I for one agree 100% that drugs such as Cannabis need to be legalised and controlled properly under proper legislation. Taking things out of the hands of criminals is the best way foward.
Come to my blog: http://www.richard-wilkins.blogspot.com
If the population was stoned (as well as stupid) they might just vote McBust back. Suprised therefore that Liebour have not legalised heroin yet.
I was young once too! Seriously, so much muddled thinking on here, so much ‘taking personal experience to excess’, so much extrapolation from a small/single sample… hard to know where to start.
Yes there is huge political hypocrisy, since almost anyone over the age of 25 and up to the age of c50, and quite a lot of us over that, has almost certainly taken some drugs at some point. I would licence weed – especially if grown for one’s personal use. Hash is another matter – there is no way of knowing, when it’s bought off the street, what is in it, how strong it is, what it’s been cut with etc etc. Legliaing that might standardise it – I’m not so sure. That’s why grass is a different matter
I was in my 20s from mid60s to mid70s, living in bohemian milieux, so I saw and experienced all of that. I’ve tried all kinds of stuff, as have most of my friends, and most of us have not only survived but thrived. On the other hand I’ve also seen freinds succumb to coke, a very few to heroin, many to alcohol. There is such a thing as an ‘addictive persoanlity’ and it’s usually inherited.
I’ve also been lied to by freinds whom I’ve later discovered to have been smuggling (rather than dealing). Being involved with drugs has a pretty far-reaching effect on people, and I’ve not liked what I’ve seen. A close friend’s son was murdered over drugs. It’s not all fun and games; and such events dfo make legalisation very atttractive., but it has to be faced, that the very illegality is what makes ‘drugs’ so attractive to a lot of people, it it wren;t drugs, they woudl get into something else illegal, whcih might be even worse for ‘society’.
It’s impossible to stop people walking on the wild side. Legalising recreational drugs will get rid of a lot of the downside, eg drugs contaminated and cut with nasties, drugs which make you ill or kill you, and the whole violence/prostitution thing. What it won’t do, is stop people overdosing – just as legalising alcohol has not stopped alcoholism.
Regarding Afghanistan, and the politicians’ justification for the war, I find it amazing that you can drive through rural Oxfordshire as I’ve done over the last couple of years, and see fields upon fields of opium poppies awaiting harvest, grown on ferttile land which would easily support food crops. I understand this opium farming is because there is a world shortage of diamorphines.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan we wage war supposedly to eradicate the opium crop, although nothing else will grow on that land and in that climate.
Why on earth are we not buying the Afghan opium crop for legitimate and much needed medical usage?
For the first time ever I disagree with you Guido. Your argument is too general and simplistic. How about pimps supplying heroin to 14 year old girls to make them work on the streets.
Is that ok with you?
If the 14 y.o. girls had access to cheap heroin, they wouldn’t need to be on the game trying to pay for the expensive stuff that’s been cut with Vim.
Amazing variety of views, some sensible and pragmatic and some very weird! I agree with the main man-drug laws are a mess.Ministers pandering to red top journo`s and rushing out legislation based on poor research and more than a little of the “don`t bother with the facts, we`ve made our mind up” type responses do not result in sensible management of the problem.
Try telling a teenager that exstacy or cannabis will fry their brains and they will laugh at you. As a friend of mine said-I`d rather meet a group of teenagers down a dark alley stoned on grass than the same group on Stella-
The cost to the exchequer, in crime to fund habits, the judicial processes to apprehend and prosecute, the add on social costs, the un-winnable ludicrous war on drugs in Afghanistan and South and Central America ( ask the US how sucessful they have been!?) suggest that legalisation and provision via prescription of properly regulated “clean” drugs would basically save the Govt billions. There is no evidence that doing this would result in the majority of the population running down to the surgery and becoming addicts- and remember we tolerate drugs in the form of alcohol and cigs which arguably affect far larger sectors of the population. Yes, Guido lets have some sensible debate about all this- but regrettably we have no politicians with the balls to confront the howls of outrage from some sections of the media and academic establishment that a radical and probably more sensible regime would provoke….
Yes the laws are daft.
If we are serious about stopping our children indulging in drugs we need Swedish style “no means no” education and we need a rigorous testing regime.
That’s if you REALLY want to reduce drug taking as opposed to just pretending you want to.
First stage should be decriminalisation. Then we need to move to state supervised sale of a limited range of drugs.
Guido, you should not be tipping your hat to the UKDPC, you have been used. Any critical examination of the motives of the people who started UKPDC, pitched for the funding and those who now run it, indicates they are covert legalisation lobbyists. Roger Howard is in charge, when he ran DrugScope elements there were covertly helping organise the European drug legalisation movement-specifically against HMG policy-while getting the bulk of funding from government. Was that corrupt? You judge-whatever you think about the drugs issue personally. Ruth Runciman is also involved, she could hardly be regarded as a disspassionate observer of the drug scene, she was acused of fixing her so called “independent review” here:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmhaff/561/0060803.htm
Britain has a very serious drug problem, the main driver of the re classification of cannabis was the UK Director of Mental Health. All the evidence (rather than the hyperbole) about drugs use-and I include alcohol & tobacco, is that TOTAL HARM from drugs increases in direct proportion to use. The evidence of the tobacco/alcohol model worldwide is very convincing on this point. Incidentally, Ireland also has a massive problem maybe worse than the Uk in relation to poulation size.. The most succesful country in Europe on drugs use is Sweden, that country also has the most restrictive policies. Incidentally have you SEEN Mr Nice? A human wreck. I have known him for 35 years, lovely and funny guy but drugs have made a mess of him. Many many kids get messed up by (particularly) cannabis before they leave their teens. To pretend otherwise is silly. One in four is especially vulnerable genetically. Many of those incapable of work in Britain are messed up by drugs use and will never reach their human potential. Please do not trivialise this issue.
[...] Guido Fawkes added an interesting post today on Potty Priorities – Guy Fawkes' blogHere’s a small readingDick Wow Dope and Pizza together. There’s millions in that franchise. Needs a catchy name tho. 221. LEGALISE IT – IT’S A HEALTH ISSUE STUPID says: April 23, 2009 at 8:38 pm. Mitch,. Yes, I do know what you are saying but I’m sure you can see how silly it looks …. Legalisation will put them out of business. The GDP of Liverpool would collapse and they would have to go back to nicking hub caps. After all Al Capones attempts to go legit after prohibition were farcical. … [...]
Some further points:
1. Drugs have been part and parcel of human culture since the dawn of time (other mammals make use of drugs as well).
2. It is perhaps highly debatable if you took drugs out of the arts whether you would have had much out of the last 500 years. Virtually every jazz great was a heroin addict. Ditto many rock stars. Few writers have been immune to the charms of alcohol and tobacco, essential to their craft. Poets seem to have had a fondness for opiates. All the great dancers have been on drugs of various sorts. The only non druggie art form I can think of at the moment is probably classical music, although a lot of them have to go on sedatives like Beta blockers.
3. We need to think seriously about how to legalise the drug trade and squeeze out the worst Mafia elements/counter the worst health effects. We probably need to think in terms of licensed street and home dealers, state processing of drugs, a limited range of “pure” drugs made available for sale with health warnings. State profits from the trade to be used for drug education and addiction treatment.
4. I agree we should be buying up the whole of the Afghan opium crop. It’s a great way as well to drive up the price of heroin.
Squeezing out criminal distribution through legalisation is just not possible. More than 20% of the UK tobacco trade is smuggled counterfeit or both, calls for legalisation which take no account of the increased harm from increased use in a legalised scenario are not thought through. They ignore the evdience of the tobacco/alcohol model , they ignore the fact that legalisation of illegal drugs with a bigger user base would suit criminality just as much as the current situation. Illegal distribution for what are basically cheap goods with lots of price flexibility could ALWAYS undercut legal distribution. Impose tax as some advocate and even more incentive for crime, ring legal distribution around with rules (age etc), another incentive for crime.
David Rayne -
There is a difference between the legitimate trade in alcohol and what you get under prohibition. Same goes for betting shop gambling.
Certainly age controls ARE easier to apply. The extent to which a criminal trade continues to flourish depends on how much you tax the legitimate trade. If you are sensible you don’t leave much room for illegal traders. Legitimate traders will do a lot of work for you, denouncing illegal traders .
If you couple this with serious anti-education on the Swedish model and a regime of drug testing in schools, you will do FAR MORE to curtail drug use than anything else.
Drug decriminalisation in Portugal
http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/greenwald_whitepaper.pdf
Just came across this Cambridge Union Debate from last Thursday. Worth a watch
http://www.archive.org/details/cus_2009-04-23_debate_legalize-heroin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8019075.stm
Looks like Labour’s support is sagging even further