Drugs.

[Simbelyne]

Would you;

[hardcorps1775]

i saw a roundtable discussion on tv awhile ago about legalizing drugs or decriminalizing it and the most vocal opponent was a young black woman who worked in a drug rehab facility.

she said supporters of legalization are white liberals who want to use their fancy high priced drugs at parties out in their safe lilly-white suburban homes. legalization of drugs would destroy what's left of the inner city and it's minority residents. anyone who supports legalization should come and live in the ghetto for awhile and see firsthand what kind of impact legalizing drugs would have...

it was funny to see the white intellectuals soft shoe and tap dance around this pissed off, afro wearing black chick...white guilt is so hilarious!!!

[monocrat]

All narcotics should be legal.

[morrocan roll]

i have lived in the ghetto of moss side. with or without drugs this place is the pits. it's a place where crime is all that some people have. robbery, prostitution, drugs, gambling. the black economy is the only real economy in such areas. it was like this in moss side in the late sixties early seventies. heroin didn't arrive in the uk in any qauntity till the late seventies when the shah of iran fell.
crack didn't arrive until ten years after that. drugs have not caused the ghetto to be a fucking dump. it's always been a dump.
drugs are a modern symptom of long established problems. drugs are now making the places extremely dangerous. big big money for very little effort and no qualifications.
if heroin was legalised today, all boats heading to our shores with millions of quids worth of the stuff on board would find that, they had nothing but near worthless dust. but if it was still ilegal in france ...then head the boat there instead and still make a killing. all these drugs were perfectly legal and heavily indulged in until the start of the twentieth century. some personal problems but hardly any social problems on the scale of today.
prohibition is handing the biggest ilegal money making machine on a plate, to some of the most dangerous people in the world.
yes including terrorists. does that make sense to you?

[Toadborg]

I think soft drugs should probably be legal but i also think there should be tight controls, education and measures to help hardcore addicts back into the real world.......

I agree with you m.roll that drug taking in deprived areas is a symptom of other things and that it is imperative to deal with poverty etc also, something that few are about to deal with properly.....

[hardcorps1775]

yeah, i can see the logic of your argument but the thing is like you said, in the ghetto, it's all they have.

no education, no jobs, no hope, so you might as well get high to escape and dull the pain. by legalizing drugs, not only will it be even more available than it is now, you're telling people it's ok, condoned by society and the government. you further erode morality and hope.

i don't think drugs would dry up at all if it was legalized. sure, the medellin cartel and the french heroin syndicates might start shipping their goods to places it was still illegal but i think the drug manufacturers would be more than happy to fill the breach...i'm talking the legal manufacturers like bayer and excedrin, etc. that's if the gov't didn't step in and take over manufacturing and distribution on it's own! they would simply be expanding their line of goods...

i don't know if it's the same in england as it is in america, but crack cocaine has decimated black america. it was a scourge of biblical proportions my country is still reeling from.

i think it's just a bad idea...

[pnjsurferpoet]

I'm a "keep current laws" guy on this.

[hardcorps1775]

actually, i'd like to see drug sales become a capital crime...

[DevilMan]

legalize marijuana as its a relatively harmless drug but as to the others - hell no and further, no treatment, unless you count lethal injection or a 9mm hollowpoint to the brain.

addicts are a major source of crime and serve only to extend poverty. look at the gangbanging morons in California - personally, I say let the cops take a month off, let the bloods and crips kill each other in and send the LAPD in and wipe out the remaining morons.

ok off my soapbox.

[morrocan roll]

laugh laugh fucking laugh! you has to be related to the bush family? or your from them parts yeah! same religion then ? oh right ...same education!
and i thought i hadn't done to well.

[ElysiumUnknown]

Before any legislation is changed people need to be more educated about drugs. I think the problems that have arisen, been caused by and are worsened by drugs need to be looked at and dealt with.

It's all very well for those who use drugs for purely recreational uses to support legalisation, but there are more serious issues such as addiction, drug-related crime and poverty that need to be realised.

[Man Of Kent]

Originally posted by ElysiumUnknown
Before any legislation is changed people need to be more educated about drugs.

..yes provoded we are talking about the "truth" and not the doom laden Govt shite.

[ElysiumUnknown]

Originally posted by Man Of Kent
..yes provoded we are talking about the "truth" and not the doom laden Govt shite.

Yes. No condescending "drugs are very, very bad" crap.

I over-heard a conversation between year 8 and 9 (13-14 year olds) school kids yesterday about a friend the same age:

"Does she do drugs then?"

"Yeah....she does them all!"

"Yeah she smokes crack doesn't she?"

"Yeah, she does. I know loads of people who do."

It amused me because these were middle class suburban children who were obviously supporting drugs to match their acquired status of "freak alternative person".

Drugs are so glorified that younger people want to do them to be "cool" and also have a deadly stigma attached to them so people think you die from inhaling cannabis smoke. (Obviously those are massive generalisations.)

I can't say I know much about them either, I've learnt what I know from the internet. Young people shouldn't have to find out like that.

[Darth Fred]

Perhaps we should consider legalising all drugs, then charging the same kind of duties as we do an alcohol and tobacco, and watch the drug dealers go bankrupt...

On a serious note, I'd say legalise cannabis, because most of the evidence says it's a lot less harmful than alcohol (for instance, you're much less likely to drive recklessly while stoned than while drunk). As for the harder drugs, I'd keep them illegal. I'd probably be a little more lenient to the users (treatment rather than jail), but I'd want dealers to be dealt with severely (mandatory life sentence for dealing hard drugs).

[morrocan roll]

giving life sentences or the death penalty will not deter drug dealers. they will be more determined not to get caught. so they will shoot and kill. most investments in ilegal drugs have a pay back of 10 times your outlay almost instantly.
if class a drugs were despensed from chemists on a prescition basis, the glamour would soon die down. ilegal adds the rock n roll myth to the powder. when it becomes medication it aint glamorous. a heroin addict with good clean drugs on script can function perfectly well at there jobs. live a perfectly normal life. bit like being a diabetic. i'm an ex heroin addict. legalising the stuff via scripts doesn't cure the addict but it would cure some of the ills of society at large. the crime rate would plummet. your belongings would be a lot safer. huge ammounts of money ...we're talking billions, would stop flowing to criminals and terrorists. the drugs would be properly controlled.
who would buy cheap cut heroin when they can get it free on prescription? the trade would shrink rapidly and all but dissapear.
addicts wouldn't be spending every waking moment wondering where the money for the next fix is coming from.
it's time someone took responsibility. the war on drugs has obviously been lost. so we just let criminals and terrorists keep creaming it then?

[pnjsurferpoet]

MR you offered a lot to take in on this subject and I agree. In school, you're cool if you do drugs...that's the pressure. I think it should be the other way around or...no criticism either way.

[morrocan roll]

Originally posted by pnjsurferpoet
MR you offered a lot to take in on this subject and I agree. In school, you're cool if you do drugs...that's the pressure. I think it should be the other way around or...no criticism either way. hard drugs are bad news. but we have no magic wand to wave that will make them go away. i have known many addicts.
even doctors and lawyers and two news reporters as well as the obvious ones in the music bizz. where i got involved. the proffesional people don't go on a crime spree simply because they can afford to pay for their indulgence. the standard of their work will and does suffer if they have to go without because of supply problems. i think that britains most famous heroin addict today is; will self. he used to be maggie thathers press man. he's now a writer/reporter/celebrity who talks quite openly about his love of opiates.
whatever your view, surely you agree that being ilegal has achieved nothing but an ever increasing ammount of people taking drugs. it's time we did something a bit more radical, like society taking control of this problem instead of having very dangerous and ilegal men calling the shots.

[Kiezo]

I can't believe people are actually in favour of keeping currents laws.

Now here's (http://www.thedea.org/thealternative.html) an idea.

I wouldn't exactly agree with it all, but it's a start...

[cokephreak]

Any one interested in this should read Ben Elton's "High Society".

it's the main story.

Main arguemnt runs : A lot of people take drugs, and will continue to do so.
While these people are taking drugs they are a) breaking the law b) giving a lot of money to criminals

Legalising all drugs (not this half arsed decriminalisation of pot) would bring huge numbers of people back into legal society, and would deprive the criminal underworld of a huge source of income.

[Doofay]

Im just wondering, can anybody tell me how a man smoking cannabis, in his own home, is hurting anybody aside from himself?
Why then, must he live in fear and feel like he is not a part of society because of this?

much of the reason so many people do drugs is because of the criminal and "bad boy" edge to it. Take this away and it no longer looks "big and hard". Just to quote a pro legalisation site i go on [i doubt its this drastic, but...]

Imagine this:

This morning at 5:45 your door came down with a bang. Several hours later, as the paramilitary police tac squad hauled away you and your crop, someone showed you a search warrant.

You called your lawyer, and he told you s/he told you $10,000 up front ("clean money" only) and that the government was asking that you be held on $100,000 bail. S/he also told you that the 425 small plants you had in your sea of green were good for a minimum of 60 months in prison, and that your beautiful family, your excellent work history, and even your serious drug problem that forced you to do all this would not make it less.

S/he also told you that if you didn't plead guilty right now, the government will add another charge for the deer rifle they found in your closet. No big deal? Under federal law, a weapon possessed, even "lawfully", while committing a drug "trafficking" crime adds a MANDATORY five years to every sentence.

You then called your wife. It took her five minutes to stop sobbing. You thought she'd recovered from seeing you taken away in handcuffs, from watching the children as they watched you leave, and from burying the family dog that the police had shot. She had. It's worse than that. She's sitting on the bare floor in the middle of an empty house, crying with the kids. Right after you left the police backed a moving van up to the house and emptied it. Rugs off the floor, pictures off the walls, right down to the socks and the underwear. It was, they stated, all the proceeds of crime.

That's what's happening. The Federal Government and all the local governments have decided to make a show of stopping drugs, while they're looting the victims, destroying their families, and exploiting their free prison labor. You're better off trying robbery. Under the Federal guidelines, a robbery of up to $50,000 gets you no more time than your 425 small plants. Welcome to the wonders of the war on drugs.

[monocrat]

Originally posted by duffy_2k
Im just wondering, can anybody tell me how a man smoking cannabis, in his own home, is hurting anybody aside from himself?
Why then, must he live in fear and feel like he is not a part of society because of this?



Exactly. Smoking (or growing) cannabis in one's home is a victimless crime.

[cokephreak]

Im just wondering, can anybody tell me how a man smoking cannabis, in his own home, is hurting anybody aside from himself?

He's not... unless he purchased it from a dealer who's eventual supplier is out of the country, or any of the larger organisations in the UK.

If that's the case then the crime he is commiting is funding criminal activity that puts guns on the streets, puts heroin in the vains of our youth, imports east europeans as slaves to work in our brothals, that puts seed money into "investmants" of loan sharks....

Thats off the top of my head.

The irony is, it's only really hurting the country BECAUSE the drug is illegal.

Having said that, while the drug is illegal, people taking it do hurt others (indirectly).

[morrocan roll]

well i'm about to go off into the very hot and sunny garden and have a glass of red wine and a spliff. i'm nackered having been digging all day. i shall relax in a while and then ...back to my spade. and your trying to tell me i'm committing a criminal act! give over man.

[cokephreak]

Err.. M.R. You are commiting a criminal act.

It's not a very immoral act, and in fact is only immoral BECAUSE its illegal.

Frying Bacon on Marlow highstreet is also illegal. Stupid though it may seem.

In fact, whether something is illegal or not has very little to do with whether M.R thinks it should be or not and a great deal to do with whether its agaisnt the law or not.

Smoking cannibis is agaisnt the law, therefore it is illegal.

[Darth Fred]

Originally posted by cokephreak
Err.. M.R. You are commiting a criminal act.

It's not a very immoral act, and in fact is only immoral BECAUSE its illegal.



Strange, I would have thought that the causality should work the other way around.

As for it being illegal to fry bacon in Marlow highstreet, is that a specific ordinance applying only to one street, or an application of clean air laws?

[monocrat]

Morality is subjective, ergo how can laws be constructed from ethical judgements? For example, a person might think it's immoral to eat meat. Should meat eating be outlawed?

In my mind, morrocan roll is not infringing on anybody's rights by smoking a joint in his garden.

[cokephreak]

In my mind, morrocan roll is not infringing on anybody's rights by smoking a joint in his garden.


No, but he is breaking the law. (why do people have a problem understanding this???)



Strange, I would have thought that the causality should work the other way around.

Well, it makes a little more sense when you realise that pot was made illegal because it was damaming our opium trade. Now it is illegal buying it puts money into the hands of the criminals.





As for it being illegal to fry bacon in Marlow highstreet, is that a specific ordinance applying only to one street


1 street in 1 town. But just because the reasons have been lost in time, and it hurts no one, does not effect fact that it is still against the law.

[cokephreak]

Morality is subjective, ergo how can laws be constructed from ethical judgements? For example, a person might think it's immoral to eat meat. Should meat eating be outlawed?


Meaning morals should not be made law, only things that actually hurt or damage something or some-one, right?
Morals are far too whimsical to set in stone.
Thats my thoughts, but in order to put that into effect we would have to scrap all our laws and start again.

Assuming moraility is not a basis to make a law, do you accept that incest should be legal?

[monocrat]

Your reasoning is flawed. Are you saying a person should ALWAYS follow the law? Laws can sometimes be unjust.

[cokephreak]

Your reasoning is flawed. Are you saying a person should ALWAYS follow the law? Laws can sometimes be unjust.


When did I say that????

M.R. Said that he was going to smoke a spliff and "your trying to tell me i'm committing a criminal act! give over man". Yes I am saying it is a criminal act.

There are many things that are criminal acts that are good and noble things to do.

The suffergettes (sp?) commited many criminal acts, but who would say they were in the wrong?
Ghandi committed many criminal acts, but he was doing it for good.

where did I say that because something is criminal it is automatically moraly wrong?


Try reading what I say before you jump to conclussions.