Should drug use be decriminalised?

[MrFrost]

Interesting debate this one.

Pro's and con's what ever way you look at it.

[Sheepskin Stu]

Are you Robert Kilroy-Silk in disguise?

[Lytham Rover]

MrFrost wrote:

Interesting debate this one.

Pro's and con's what ever way you look at it.

as someone who has worked with people with drug and/or alcohol problems for the best part of the last 30 years it is far more complex than just decriminalising

the best way of treating people  is employment

whenever the numbers of people in employment go up the number of people with drug problems goes down

employment increases self esteem gives them a routine and puts money in their pocket

whilst there is a de facto decriminalisation in so far as the police do drug referrals as opposed to going straight to court treatment agencies are not hassled by the police or other enforcement agencies and access to treatment is quick and easy

i could go on but.........................i cant be arsed!

[jonrover]

I will probably get slated for my views on this subject, but I believe there is a case for decriminalising drugs for a variety of reasons, including crime reduction, health benefits, and tax revenues.

Heroin for example, is a relatively harmless drug in its controlled prescribed state, which is Diamorphine. There was once a study undertaken by a physician in Plymouth that proved the theory that heroin users could participate in normal everyday activities like employment and running households, when diamorphine was properly administered in a controlled environment. There would be less muggings and burglary as a result, and a decreased burden on the NHS. Probably less prostitution too. Would a user be more likely to pay for the pure uncut drug, prescribed and administered safely with little risk of abscesses and blood diseases, which would raise tax revenue for the treasury? I personally would hope so.

Other drugs like Ecstasy, Amphetamine and Cocaine, which would be used mainly on nights out, could be tested before consumption like they do in The Netherlands so you know what your dealing with. Cannabis supply, believe it or not, now comes predominantly from our own shores, so why can't it be grown under licensed conditions so the quality is uniform and sold by the state to produce tax revenue? I've been known to dabble in the odd left handed ciggie from time to time and I have wasted my money on some complete gash over the years. Plus Its a no brainer considering I probably did more damage to my body in Wetherspoons before the game on Saturday than I have ever done on the weed!

But that's just my opinion!

[Lytham Rover]

jonrover wrote:

I will probably get slated for my views on this subject, but I believe there is a case for decriminalising drugs for a variety of reasons, including crime reduction, health benefits, and tax revenues.

Heroin for example, is a relatively harmless drug in its controlled prescribed state, which is Diamorphine. There was once a study undertaken by a physician in Plymouth that proved the theory that heroin users could participate in normal everyday activities like employment and running households, when diamorphine was properly administered in a controlled environment. There would be less muggings and burglary as a result, and a decreased burden on the NHS. Probably less prostitution too. Would a user be more likely to pay for the pure uncut drug, prescribed and administered safely with little risk of abscesses and blood diseases, which would raise tax revenue for the treasury? I personally would hope so.
Other drugs like Ecstasy, Amphetamine and Cocaine, which would be used mainly on nights out, could be tested before consumption like they do in The Netherlands so you know what your dealing with. Cannabis supply, believe it or not, now comes predominantly from our own shores, so why can't it be grown under licensed conditions so the quality is uniform and sold by the state to produce tax revenue? I've been known to dabble in the odd left handed ciggie from time to time and I have wasted my money on some complete gash over the years. Plus Its a no brainer considering I probably did more damage to my body in Wetherspoons before the game on Saturday than I have ever done on the weed!

But that's just my opinion!

you can do exactly the same on methadone a safer more effective medication you have to take diamorphine about 3x daily as its half life is only 4-6 hours whereas methadone has a half life of 16-18 hours and buprenorphine(subutex) has a half life in excess of 24hours

there have been lots of studies of both drugs but methadone is always the best as it is an oral medication injectable diamorphine ruins veins and introduces infections no matter how careful you are

methadone is the gold standard

[DonnyNoel]

The Ben Elton novel \"High Society\" is also an interesting read on this subject - about an MP seeking to legalise all drugs.

[Keith Myath]

I got messed up as a kid on, it wasn't till a good 6 years clean in my late twenties was i able to know my limit, the worrying thing is the type of drugs the young are using. Some seriously damaging cheap drugs are available, the days of coke and ecstasy are long gone mainly due to their cost and poor quality.

Coke has been replaced by Ketamine, Ecstacy by Mdma, and when you couple that up with GBL and other industrial cleaners selling for a fraction then we have serious problems.

Legalizing drugs wont fix everything, especially those on heroin and smack, but for the 95% of drug users, I.e. the recreational ones they can be happy they are getting quality without the criminal underworld benefiting from selling dodgy rubbish.

Anyway that's my 2 penneth.....

[jucyberry]

most of the kids round here do K, my darling nearly ex daughter in law spent most of last year off her head on it. its a dirty drug that f**ks up the kidneys amongst other things because acording to the kids it calcifies in the urinary tract.. If that's true or not I don't know.

I do know tho I feel for anyone who is swayed by the lure of the cheap buzz and I truly do admire the ones who fight to get clean..
kids sadly will always look for the new thing,  I read today  the new thing is ivory wave it is advertised as bath salts and if reports are correct has already claimed it's first life.

[BobG]

Tough decisisons everywhere on this subject. As a fairly libertarian humanist myself, I'd be tempted to legalise quite a few based on the arguments above. I once knew well a girl who was off her head on crack. She was a nice lass who had had a simply awful childhood. That wasn't her fault. Nor was it her fault she ended up without qualifications, skills, life experience or just about everything else that folk need to get by. So she ended up in a real bad way. As luck would have it, she did get off it in the end, entirely through her own efforts. She always was quite an exceptional girl. So, to me, she typifies the danger of continued criminalised drugs. If they had been legal, she might still have got high, but I doubt she'd have ended up with that shit. I wouldn't legalise 'em all though. Some are just too nasty. But by not doing so, I would inevitably leave the drug barons in place - pedalling ever harder and nastier drugs. So that brings me right back to the fundamental question: if you do legalise, you have to do the bloody lot. And that's a real hard decision to make.

And by the by, though I've dabbled in a fair few over the years, I've never heard of most of the ones talked about in this thread!

Cheers

BobG

[CusworthRovers]

MrFrost wrote:

Interesting debate this one.

Pro's and con's what ever way you look at it.

Should Mr Frost join VSC. Another interesting debate. Lot's of Pro's and I cannot think of many cons to be honest.

I say yes.

Very passionate about Rovers on and off the pitch.
Very vociferous on this VSC forum and an avid user.
He sounds a lovely lad.


Edit: and Norfolk too, same descript as above...............discuss

Flash Delirium

[Sheepskin Stu]

Beware of the new drug from Czechoslovakia called Cake. It has an active ingredient which is a dangerous psychoactive compound known as dimesmeric andersonphosphate. It stimulates the part of the brain called Shatner's Bassoon. That's the bit of the brain that deals with time perception. So, a second feels like a month. Well, it almost sounds like fun unless you're the Prague schoolboy who walked out into the street straight in front of a tram. He thought he'd got a month to cross the street.

One young kiddie on Cake cried all the water out of his body. Just imagine how his mother felt. It's a f**king disgrace.

Drugs destroy families. Well, a disabled lonely teenager, a blind mother, a family held together by the father's crack dealing which he uses to keep them in talking books and dildos.

[Lytham Rover]

Keith Myath wrote:

I got messed up as a kid on, it wasn't till a good 6 years clean in my late twenties was i able to know my limit, the worrying thing is the type of drugs the young are using. Some seriously damaging cheap drugs are available, the days of coke and ecstasy are long gone mainly due to their cost and poor quality.

Coke has been replaced by Ketamine, Ecstacy by Mdma, and when you couple that up with GBL and other industrial cleaners selling for a fraction then we have serious problems.

Legalizing drugs wont fix everything, especially those on heroin and smack, but for the 95% of drug users, I.e. the recreational ones they can be happy they are getting quality without the criminal underworld benefiting from selling dodgy rubbish.

Anyway that's my 2 penneth.....

MDMA is the correct name for ecstasy  they are one and the same

[Sheepskin Stu]

I think he meant MBNA. Ecstacy by credit card.

[Snods Shinpad 2]

Sheepskin Stu wrote:

Beware of the new drug from Czechoslovakia called Cake...

Sounds bloody 'orrible. I heard one girl threw up her own pelvis bone before she snuffed her lid.

Somebody had better let Jimmy Greaves know about this...

[MrFrost]

Sheepskin Stu wrote:

Beware of the new drug from Czechoslovakia called Cake. It has an active ingredient which is a dangerous psychoactive compound known as dimesmeric andersonphosphate. It stimulates the part of the brain called Shatner's Bassoon. That's the bit of the brain that deals with time perception. So, a second feels like a month. Well, it almost sounds like fun unless you're the Prague schoolboy who walked out into the street straight in front of a tram. He thought he'd got a month to cross the street.

One young kiddie on Cake cried all the water out of his body. Just imagine how his mother felt. It's a fcuking disgrace.

Drugs destroy families. Well, a disabled lonely teenager, a blind mother, a family held together by the father's crack dealing which he uses to keep them in talking books and dildos.

Jesus. Sounds a bad 'un. How do you cry all the water from your body? Sounds horrific.  

[Sheepskin Stu]

Just wait until you try Clarky Cat or Triple Sub...

[Keith Myath]

bedale rover wrote:

Keith Myath wrote:

I got messed up as a kid on, it wasn't till a good 6 years clean in my late twenties was i able to know my limit, the worrying thing is the type of drugs the young are using. Some seriously damaging cheap drugs are available, the days of coke and ecstasy are long gone mainly due to their cost and poor quality.

Coke has been replaced by Ketamine, Ecstacy by Mdma, and when you couple that up with GBL and other industrial cleaners selling for a fraction then we have serious problems.

Legalizing drugs wont fix everything, especially those on heroin and smack, but for the 95% of drug users, I.e. the recreational ones they can be happy they are getting quality without the criminal underworld benefiting from selling dodgy rubbish.

Anyway that's my 2 penneth.....

MDMA is the correct name for ecstasy  they are one and the same

I meant mdma has replaced ecstasy in use, i.e. More people are doing it by the bag full as apposed to a a couple of cheeky pills on a Saturday night.

Anyway you try and buy a bag of mandy that hasn't been cut with phets or even Ket, at least to a certain extent that if someone has gone to the trouble of knocking pills out theres at least mdxx in em or at worse piperazine.

Tbh recreational drugs has changed, i dj a lot and was in Ibiza a few weeks ago, despite the island being half dead it seems people are more in to getting screwed up in their appartment than going to a club and having the times of their lives. It's not a happy experience anymore for every person coming up on a pill there's 5 more sat in the corner rubbing their head like a nutter!

God knows what its going to be like when my kids are experimenting, scary really

[Nudga]

Keith Myath wrote:

bedale rover wrote:

Keith Myath wrote:

I got messed up as a kid on, it wasn't till a good 6 years clean in my late twenties was i able to know my limit, the worrying thing is the type of drugs the young are using. Some seriously damaging cheap drugs are available, the days of coke and ecstasy are long gone mainly due to their cost and poor quality.

Coke has been replaced by Ketamine, Ecstacy by Mdma, and when you couple that up with GBL and other industrial cleaners selling for a fraction then we have serious problems.

Legalizing drugs wont fix everything, especially those on heroin and smack, but for the 95% of drug users, I.e. the recreational ones they can be happy they are getting quality without the criminal underworld benefiting from selling dodgy rubbish.

Anyway that's my 2 penneth.....

MDMA is the correct name for ecstasy  they are one and the same

I meant mdma has replaced ecstasy in use, i.e. More people are doing it by the bag full as apposed to a a couple of cheeky pills on a Saturday night.

Anyway you try and buy a bag of mandy that hasn't been cut with phets or even Ket, at least to a certain extent that if someone has gone to the trouble of knocking pills out theres at least mdxx in em or at worse piperazine.

Tbh recreational drugs has changed, i dj a lot and was in Ibiza a few weeks ago, despite the island being half dead it seems people are more in to getting screwed up in their appartment than going to a club and having the times of their lives. It's not a happy experience anymore for every person coming up on a pill there's 5 more sat in the corner rubbing their head like a nutter!

God knows what its going to be like when my kids are experimenting, scary really

I once watched Trainspotting off my titties on MDMA and it was one of the best nights of my life. Took a couple of E's in Karisma once and I couldn't bloody move my legs, the bouncers had to carry me down stairs and bundled me in a taxi.

[PDX_Rover]

Ha!  Brass Eye.  Brilliant.

 
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SyurgZ8GaQ[/video]

[The Red Baron]

Rigoglioso wrote:

Having had to put up with the verbal diatribe of Nuneaton's local smack head this evening, I for one sincerely hope that harsher penalties are imposed on people who dabble in drugs.

And I also hope that Nuneaton get Millwall in the FA Cup and they go there and give the scawny little Warwickshire t**ts a proper good hiding!!!!

You went to Nuneaton at night without an armed escort? Blimey, I'm surprised you're still hear to tell the tale.

There are parts of Nuneaton that make Stainforth look like Mayfair.

[Standanista]

Drug tourism rife here in Bolivia - any place where you're at the source and coke is cheaper than baking powder, it's likely to be top quality.

Yes, in England, I would legalise the lot, control it, tax it and use the revenue to build tip-top hospitals/schools/public transport etc.

Bit of a mix of the laissez faire and planned economic models really - \"if you wanna get off that's your choice, and we'll use the cash to benefit society.\"  Adam Smith meets Howard Marks, and we're all winners.

[Standanista]

Sheepskin Stu wrote:

Beware of the new drug from Czechoslovakia called Cake. It has an active ingredient which is a dangerous psychoactive compound known as dimesmeric andersonphosphate. It stimulates the part of the brain called Shatner's Bassoon. That's the bit of the brain that deals with time perception. So, a second feels like a month. Well, it almost sounds like fun unless you're the Prague schoolboy who walked out into the street straight in front of a tram. He thought he'd got a month to cross the street.

One young kiddie on Cake cried all the water out of his body. Just imagine how his mother felt. It's a fcuking disgrace.

Drugs destroy families. Well, a disabled lonely teenager, a blind mother, a family held together by the father's crack dealing which he uses to keep them in talking books and dildos.

Noel Edmonds used to do that on Swap Shop, I've seen him, Cheggers and Maggy Philbin do it off-camera inbetween Saturday morning bike rides.

Tarrant, Sally James, Carolgees and that black fellow Henry were not much better on the other side.

[BillyStubbsTears]

The Red Baron wrote:

Rigoglioso wrote:

Having had to put up with the verbal diatribe of Nuneaton's local smack head this evening, I for one sincerely hope that harsher penalties are imposed on people who dabble in drugs.

And I also hope that Nuneaton get Millwall in the FA Cup and they go there and give the scawny little Warwickshire t**ts a proper good hiding!!!!

You went to Nuneaton at night without an armed escort? Blimey, I'm surprised you're still hear to tell the tale.

There are parts of Nuneaton that make Stainforth look like Mayfair.

The last, indeed, the ONLY time I had a night out in Nuneaton, it felt like a surreal dream.

Had a kebab outside the club that we'd just left and watched some bairn being hoyed out the club the bouncers, only to pick himself up, charge back at the (closed) doors torro-like with his head down and knock himself unconscious.

Then, walking through what I suppose passes for a main shopping district, we encountered a rather large chap with his kecks and scuddies round his ankles, stretching out his not-inconsiderably proportioned scrotum into a horizontal sheet and exhorting passers-by to place loose change on it.

It made Royston Vasey look like Monaco.

[Lytham Rover]

Rigoglioso wrote:

So it isn't just me who finds Nuneaton to be a breeding place for the neanderthal man then? I sincerely hope when I make the trip to Hinckley it isn't anywhere as bad as sh*tty little neighbour.

hinckley is in leicestershire nuneaton is in warwickshire  'nuff said