Relaxation of drug laws

[cromwell]

The Home Affairs Select Committee is recommending that in effect, drug use be decriminalised. Cameron (and for once I agree with him) has said no.

To me the most effective voices in this debate are two drugs workers who work with addicts, who say that decriminalisation will not work and will in fact make things worse.

I'd rather trust their opinion than the usual middle class theorists who come up with ideas like this.

[Workingman]

Go have a look at the BBC blog. All the junkies and their 'advocates' and 'support workers' are out in force shouting down anyone who agrees with Cameron.

Well, he does get a lot of things wrong, but on this one he is right.

[Oojamaflip]

I've found some of the arguments for decriminalising drugs to be quite persuasive. Alcohol is a drug as is tobacco. There will always be addictive personalities who take things to excess and whatever we do in life, and we should always have a safety net for those who go too far. As consenting adults we way up the risks and decide whether or not to take them. By decriminalising certain drugs I guess there's a hope that people will no longer be controlled by their dealer, and consequently there'd be a drop in some petty crime.

[Workingman]

I suppose that we could sell them in the equivalent of the old Off Licenses - limited opening hours. Do away with dealers and charge tax and VAT on them. Win win, deficit solved.

After a while we could move them to the shelves of supermarkets like we have done with cigs and alcohol. Approval would be needed at the self-service tills... no problem, some check out operator will authorise your purchase of three phials of heroin and six syringes if you look over 18. Sale approved. Next.

[shazsha]

I had written a BIG reply to the above POVs but decided that we all seem to be pretty set in our views on drugs use/misuse and we aren't likely to change them now, plus I didn't want to bore you all silly with my middle class, drug advocacy!!!
So I've shortened my post to make a couple of small points....

The war on drugs has been ongoing for over 50 years now and it definitely isn't being won though I suppose the statistics given could make some feel it is.
It really is time we took our collective heads out of the sand and looked for a viable drugs program.

Cameron claimed today that the war on drugs is being won but I believe the figures he is using aren't giving an honest picture.

The use of illegal hard drugs is down by a minute percentage but, imo ,these figures are being massaged because the policy of prescribing LEGAL drugs has expanded and obviously these aren't showing in the ILLEGAL drugs figures.
Methadone deaths in England and Wales have soared by a third in the last year and methadone is the major player in the government's drug policy at present.
There are a few reasons for the soar in methadone deaths.
Firstly, imo, the dispensing practises are bad. Many addicts are simply handed this powerful drug and given it to take home. The result is they sell it on the methadone black market and people are overdosing on it.
Secondly a lot of the drug initiatives which prescribe the drug do NOT do mandatory testing.
I know one woman who uses methadone and has been on it for 5 years. In this time she has had two drug tests and on each occasion she tested positive. The doctors in the drug initiative decided, in their wisdom, that this meant she wasn't getting enough methadone and upped her prescription! If they had tested her fortnightly in that period they would never have had a clean test because she simply uses the methadone as a cradle for when she has no heroin or crack cocaine(you can also throw a few valium into that mix).
I am being totally honest when I say that I could literally show you dozens of similar addicts.

Did you know that Portugal, Australia, Poland, Holland and many other countries in the world practise decriminalisation and that their society hasn't been suddenly over run by drug abusers?.
We have the highest drug abuse problem in Europe so obviously we are failing somewhere down the line.
Some sections of the media have also claimed that this report puts forward the notion that drug abusers wouldn't face any charges. This is utter nonsense....the report does NOT make way to excusing criminal charges for dealing drugs or any crimes implemented to fund drugs use. The report seems to be pushing the suggestion that those caught with drugs for criminal use shouldn't be criminalised straight off....rather it would like to implement drug awareness courses etc in place of criminal records.

We really do have to try and find some way of making policies that will actually work and, to just dismiss ideas out of hand, is madness. I know a lot of people think that drugs won't affect them or their families and have to admit that I did too when I was growing up.
It wasn't until I found out my older brother was an addict(an addiction that killed him) that I started becoming more aware and realising things are just getting worse instead of better.

I really do believe we have to have a good look at how decriminalisation could work for us though, tbh, I don't truly know if it the correct way forward.

[Workingman]

I would go the other way, Shaz, and castrate, or sew up, the peddlers so that they could not breed. It wouldn't matter how much... you deal you lose your tackle.

I would also go after those up the line and strip them of all their assets: houses, cars, jewellery... everything that they couldn't prove was legally obtained. And I would not let them pass it off to friends and family either. They would also get castrated/sterilised as well.

Basically, what I am saying, is that I would have zero tolerance of drugs.

[Suff]

Sorry but I'm in the no tolerance bracket.

Caught using, any illegal substance, 200 hours of community services in huge bright orange clothes to "shame" them. Caught using again and you get 400 hours and again you get 800 hours. I don't care if people caught using drugs wind up in community service for the rest of their lives, the whole point is that users must find the cost of using drugs to be prohibitive.

If there are no users then there are no peddlers, no huge dealers, no drug market actually. It is simple economics, if there were no marked then these criminals would go do something else illegal which would probably have less "support" from the population at large.

I've seen all the "statistics" put about by the "pro" groups. I've also seen my nephew have a lost decade from the use of cannabis. He is finally climbing out of the pit he has dug himself into with the help of a very supportive girlfriend. #2 son was driven to the point of suicide (very nearly successful), by the mind warping effects of almost daily use of cannabis.

Just because some people get a benign high out of casual drugs use does not mean these drugs are safe or that they are desirable. It has taken decades of effort and hundreds of billions of £ in NHS costs, to get the laws on smoking in place so that we can finally start to get smoking out of the schools which is the first step to stopping smoking altogether. why on earth would we choose to replace it with drugs use???

This is about benefits to society. It has been deemed unsafe for society that I drive my car at 130mph on a completely empty motorway at 3am. I will be severely punished for doing this, both financially and in my driving license. If I persist they will send me to jail. Punishing drivers is not "law" or even "law and order", it is simply a soft option which has very easy solutions with simple tick boxes to a resolution.

Drugs use is a much more insidious threat to our society. Yes several countries in the EU have decriminalised "soft" drugs. But those countries also have a much MUCH stronger sense of family, they have checks in society in terms of acceptable behaviour which have been removed from British society. Trying to hold up other EU countries as a model for the UK is a complete waste of time. They are different, we are different and our solutions must match the structure of our society. Making our nation a nation of soft drugs users simply does not work. Never mind the likely instances of drugged drivers this would bring on. Fancy giving a blood test every time you are stopped in a car???

Soft drugs are not "safe". They are damned dangerous to the population at large. The only reason that we don't see more addicts and screwed up people is that it is still a small section of society which "does drugs". Unfortunately it appears that most of them are in drugs support programs or are advisors to the drugs lobby (or so it seems).

For me it is simple. Societies need regulations to allow them to interact socially with safety. Drugs endanger this. End of!

[Oojamaflip]

Shaz, because you've had personal experience (very tragic experience), you continue to persuade me that decriminalisation is the way to go. As you say, the war on drugs is failing miserably so we really need a major re-think about how we deal with that.

Suff, to pick up on a point you made about a 'greater sense of family' - yes, I agree the sense of family in the UK has been eroded for whatever the social/political reasons. However, I can't quite make the link between that, and the desire/need to make only certain drugs illegal when alcohol and tobacco is not controlled.

We can never stop people using - people will always find a way. Economics will not stop people doing what they do because there will always be a market for chemicals which relieve pain, whether emotional or physical, or make people feel better for a short while, about themselves, about their situation, about 'life'.

[Suff]

However, I can't quite make the link between that, and the desire/need to make only certain drugs illegal when alcohol and tobacco is not controlled.

Cigarettes cause a dependency which damages physical health, they take time to become accustomed to them and they do not, of themselves, lead to additional addiction to future substances. Although most drug users are also smokers, so there is some link there.

Drugs damage mental health and cause a dependency which can lead to harder and harder drugs. The reasons for people taking drugs are usually recreational "high". They are different and the "paper wall" that seems to divide smoking, drinking and drugs is not actually that thin.

We can never stop people using - people will always find a way.

Most drug users start out as recreational "fun" users. Take the "fun" out of it and most of them will stop. In fact those you can't stop are those who are likely to do it no matter what it does to them. The whole point is to stop the vast market as a whole, this kind of market doesn't survive on a few thousand hopeless addicts, it survives on millions of people having a bit of "fun".

Again, I enjoy driving really fast yet I'll have my life, quite literally, destroyed for it. It hurts nobody as I've never caused an accident of this kind and am very unlikely to. Drugs users enjoy taking drugs for their own recreation. It destroys lives and funds and industry which destroys lives and kills people in vast numbers.

You can imagine that if MY recreation is restrained, I see absolutely NO reason why really dangerous recreation should not be restrained too.

That's society. So more people want to take drugs and destroy lives then people who want do drive fast and not take lives. So we get a good case for taking drugs and not driving fast.

Democracy, your servant, at work.....

Society is not, necessarily, democracy, but democracy usually descends to the lowest level of stupidity. Stupid societies, eventually, do not survive......

[Workingman]

So drugs become legal, then what?

How will they distributed? Can anybody with a licence sell them, in the same way as tobacco and alcohol, or will it only be pharmacies? How much will they cost? Who will decide? Will there be an age limit? What will it be? How much will a person be allowed to buy, and will they be allowed to pick-and-mix to the max? Will drugs be subject to tax and VAT? Where will they be allowed to be injected/sniffed/smoked by the users? What implications will there be for the world of work: for example decision making, operating machinery/driving? Will the current traders suddenly rush out for jobs, or will they turn to alternative illegal means of income generation? What might they be?