No link between tough penalties and drug use states report

[vetrof]

I thought that personal responsibility, government keeping out of peoples business, anti-nanny state and user-pays taxation were very PH.

[Esseesse]

vetrof said:

I thought that personal responsibility, government keeping out of peoples business, anti-nanny state and user-pays taxation were very PH.

This is very true. Perhaps this is a rare situation where social conservatism is at odds with that.

[Foppo]

Negative Creep said:

dandarez said:

My nephew over 20 odd years ago was given and took cannabis in his first week at Southampton Uni. His uni life lasted hardly a fortnight - he went off the rails. His family support saved him although it scuppered many years of their lives... and even to this day he his still not right.

So he went from a model student to a complete wreck in less than 14 days after smoking a spliff? I'm sorry, but there is far more to that story than you are telling us because cannabis simply doesn't affect you in that way and timeframe

I don't believe that either.

[sugerbear]

vetrof said:

dandarez said:

Julie (18) is buried in local cemetery. She died almost a year ago this week. She took just one (her first) bloody ecstasy tablet at a local evening dance. The family was devastated. You can argue all you like about whether it was pure etc.

So she took an unknown ammount of an unknown mix of chemicals, of unknown strength, from an unknown supplier and you think this is the way it should remain? Interesting logic.

Exactly, you can make the same arguement about alcohol if you have enough of it, wasn't there someone in the news recently who consumed about 30 units of alcohol in the space of ten minutes and ended up dead.

If we want to change the that people use drugs then we need to change the way we do things. Treat those with addictions on class A drugs, legalise the social B class drugs so that users know the dose/strength. I have smelt more people smoking weed in the past couple of years than I have in the previous 40 years of my life.

Labour and Conservaties want to keep the status quo despite there being less and less police resource to crack down on the use.

[anonymous-user]

vetrof said:

dandarez said:

Julie (18) is buried in local cemetery. She died almost a year ago this week. She took just one (her first) bloody ecstasy tablet at a local evening dance. The family was devastated. You can argue all you like about whether it was pure etc.

So she took an unknown ammount of an unknown mix of chemicals, of unknown strength, from an unknown supplier and you think this is the way it should remain? Interesting logic.

Quite

[petrolsniffer]

vetrof said:

So she took an unknown ammount of an unknown mix of chemicals, of unknown strength, from an unknown supplier and you think this is the way it should remain? Interesting logic.

Yes very intresting logic..

The same could happen with 'fake alcohol or fags' you could walk down to a local cornershop and buy some vodka thats been mixed with godknows what.you could prob do the same with cigs maybe even at the same shop!

Legalise,regulate it and tax the hell out of matching cigs and alcohol.With a good % going into the nhs to treat those who take it abit too far.

[nightflight]

fblm said:

Riiiight. There are no drugs in Thailand are there? Start hanging them and they are just replaced by people who will do whatever it takes to not get caught. Next thing you need a paramilitary police force and secure compounds for judges to live in. Restrict the supply of Heroin and you get a Meth epidemic. Junkies will get high you can't stop them. Far better to license it, quality control it, tax it and treat those who need it but that would lose the votes of people who can't see that the 'war on drugs' was never winnable in the first place.

Try going to Singapore, then you'll see what I mean.

[W124]

We are drifting, slowly, toward legalisation/de-criminalisation of weed for sure. Makes sense really. I think this is it, or at least the start.

[carinaman]

The BBC are reporting that Norman Baker has resigned from the Govt. It may be about this.

[Derek Smith]

Baker's resignation has little to do with drugs policy and much more to do with electioneering.

However, this has not been a few weeks that May will remember with affection.

His parting shot though is that May has refused to "take forward rational evidence-based policy", and this has been true about drugs for many years.

We have a poster earlier suggesting that a youth turned up at uni and went ga-ga after smoking weed and seemed to be using this as evidence in support of the current drugs policy. In fact it is evidence that it is not working.

At various times forces have set up drugs squads, expensive in manpower, in order to attack the drugs supply problem. Whilst all of them have been able to prove how effective they were, the truth of the matter is that the drugs supply stayed constant.

Even if they did work then the police would not be able to mount anything like it nowadays. Cameron has seen to that.

I know of one force where a custody officer reckons that drugs stops are actively discouraged because of the expense.

But May sits on the report, probably waiting to publish it at a time when there's much else in the news. So well done Baker, even if your motives are suspect. But then, when a HomeSec ignores evidence about how effective the law and enforcement is on a certain subject, it puts mere electioneering into the dark.

May has proven to be a bit of a disaster in her position. I would assume that this might be the end of her ambitions for the top post for a while.

[edh]

Politicians are never brave on this issue. Well not until they retire anyway. I hope we follow the lead of some US states.

Massive saving in the criminal justice system if we legalised drugs (est. £14bn pa I think I read).

Massive tax raising potential

Take the trade away from the criminals - look at what the drugs trade has done to central america.

Millions already consume illegal drugs in the UK every year, and most of them enjoy it (too much sanctimonious stuff about helping the "poor addicts" on question time this week). Sure there is a big need to treat the addicts. Prescribe heroin to addicts works much better than prescribing methadone - which they don't want, and in some ways is even nastier.

I suspect that there are too many (legal and illegal) vested interests in the status quo to see much change in the UK.

[hairykrishna]

nightflight said:

No, I meant hang the dealers, and you wouldn't actually have to do that many. Stop it at the source. It works in other parts of the world. Also Napalm the poppy fields in Afghanistan. Very easy to do.

Isn't the whole point of this report that harsh penalties don't necessarily work?

[vetrof]

edh said:

I suspect that there are too many (legal and illegal) vested interests in the status quo to see much change in the UK.

Nail on the head. It's quite ironic that a large proportion of funding for 'Partnership for a Drug Free America' (drugfree.org) comes from pharmaceutical companies. Such paragons of public health and humanitarianism.
http://www.drugfree.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08...


I also agree that, in terms of marijuana, the recent and future legalisations in the US are global game-changers.
You know things are changing when Warren Buffet is investing in the industry.
http://marijuana.com/news/2014/09/warren-buffett-w...

Edited by vetrof on Tuesday 4th November 10:33

[PopsandBangs]

A few friends and I had a discusion about how we feel on the subject of legalization the other day. Although all rather pissed we came to the conclusion that there may be a lot more behind the argument to keep them illegal than just the " perceived harms."

Not really sure how to word this correctly but ill give ot a go... all of us have previously or continue to indulge in very infrequent, very very moderate illegal drug use and very much enjoy it, and responsibly so. All have good jobs, are doing well and it really presents no issues to any of us in our lives. However we all agreed we really wouldnt like to see our beloved old parents gurning their faces off on MDMA or greedily snorting a line of coke and talking a load of rubbish, should they me made legal and open to everyone.  In much the same way we dont like to imagine them having sex haha, even though we know it happens (or must have done once!), but will happily talk about our own "conquests" amongst ourselves, being a group of young 20 something men etc....

However none of us  mind seeing our folks a little tipsy after several drinks at christmas, despite it certainly being a drug and certainly affecting your state. And funnily, most of us decided we wouldnt really mind seeing our parents smoke cannabis and flop out on the sofa. Strange. 

All very hyocritical i know, but i suppose we were trying to get to the bottom of why certain drugs are illegal and not acceptable to society, when we all know the Class A/B/C system is largely bks (pure MDMA at a properly measured dose, and provided you are not on certain other meds or suffering from certain mental illnesses, is completely safe.) Just a musing.... 

Think thats why politicians shy away from the issue, because this is what its really about in our minds as a whole.

[paranoid airbag]

nightflight said:

Hilts said:

Surely you mean hang the users?

No users, no dealers.

No, I meant hang the dealers, and you wouldn't actually have to do that many. Stop it at the source. It works in other parts of the world. Also Napalm the poppy fields in Afghanistan. Very easy to do.

bks does it work. As long as there are poor people and risky jobs, there will be poor people doing risky jobs. Drug dealing is one of few unskilled professions where hard works pays off.

And when you've got a small dealer network controlling supply, profits go up, which means more bribe money...

If you're criminalising thousands, it should be up to you to prove it is worthwhile, not up to anyone else to prove it isn't. fking moral guardians and Mail readers (Not you nightflight).

[Camoradi]

hairykrishna said:

Isn't the whole point of this report that harsh penalties don't necessarily work?

The point of the report is that there is no obvious link between severity of penalties and drug use in the country in question. Liberal (with a small L) politicians have immediately seized on that to say that harsh penalties don't work. By the same virtue removing harsh penalties may not work either....

due to there being "no obvious link"

[paranoid airbag]

Camoradi said:

The point of the report is that there is no obvious link between severity of penalties and drug use in the country in question. Liberal (with a small L) politicians have immediately seized on that to say that harsh penalties don't work. By the same virtue removing harsh penalties may not work either....

due to there being "no obvious link"

There's an incredibly obvious link between removing harsh penalties and fewer people suffering them. Unless you get your rocks off putting people in prison for not following arbitary rules, that's a good thing. What the fk happened to punishing people only when necessary?

Foppo said:

Negative Creep said:

dandarez said:

My nephew over 20 odd years ago was given and took cannabis in his first week at Southampton Uni. His uni life lasted hardly a fortnight - he went off the rails. His family support saved him although it scuppered many years of their lives... and even to this day he his still not right.

So he went from a model student to a complete wreck in less than 14 days after smoking a spliff? I'm sorry, but there is far more to that story than you are telling us because cannabis simply doesn't affect you in that way and timeframe

I don't believe that either.

Me neither. Ditto for the other incident unless you have a medical report linking cause of death to MDMA. I don't care how emotive it is, I don't want laws passed on faith.

[Camoradi]

paranoid airbag said:

There's an incredibly obvious link between removing harsh penalties and fewer people suffering them. Unless you get your rocks off putting people in prison for not following arbitary rules, that's a good thing. What the fk happened to punishing people only when necessary?

With respect, I don't recall expressing my personal opinion on the matter. I was just pointing out that the report (which I have read) said there is no obvious link, and that this had been taken by some to mean that the opposite is true.

I respect your opinion, but that's all it is.

[carinaman]

Derek Smith said:

But May sits on the report, probably waiting to publish it at a time when there's much else in the news. So well done Baker, even if your motives are suspect. But then, when a HomeSec ignores evidence about how effective the law and enforcement is on a certain subject, it puts mere electioneering into the dark.

May has proven to be a bit of a disaster in her position. I would assume that this might be the end of her ambitions for the top post for a while.

She's not been playing nicely with John Vine QPM if the press are to believed.

Jeremy Browne MP that previously did that job before Baker was well thought of within the Home Office reportedly, but it's being reported today that Baker was placed in the Home Office to man mark May. After Browne's resignation I wondered if he was moved from the Home Office as he may have been a threat to Clegg and that Baker would have wound up the Tories or May.

Someone that's been lambasted for writing a conspiracy theory book leaving as policies aren't heeding evidence?

[hairykrishna]

Camoradi said:

The point of the report is that there is no obvious link between severity of penalties and drug use in the country in question. Liberal (with a small L) politicians have immediately seized on that to say that harsh penalties don't work. By the same virtue removing harsh penalties may not work either....

due to there being "no obvious link"

That is what I meant by "don't necessarily work" i.e. it's not as simple as draconian penalties=less drug use.