to be a little shocked at the laissez faire attitude to drugs on here?

[ThatVikRinA22]

at risk of sounding like your mum and pulling a cats bum face

im a bit shocked. Ive seen reference to drugs and recreational drug use on here before, and while i love the diversity of mn, im always quite shocked at what seems to be a majority? view that recreational drugs are just part of life, that its ok because 'professionals' do it too, that its not the same to be seen to use cocaine at the weekend as it is to be a shoplifter or prostitute with an addiction to herioin....

is it just that no one sees the murkier side of drug use?

i suppose i see the darker side because of what i do for a living, but even before that, i would never have been tempted to try. There are the wider issues with production, trafficking, crime, gangs, and the environmental issues in production
just one such story here

my brother was a heroin addict, and i lost my sister to drugs, one way or another, i believe drug use contributed to her death. Seriously, most the crime i deal with is in some way drug related. Two weeks ago i was involved in an attempted murder over cocaine and cannabis supply.

i am not some rabid campaigner, but this is mumsnet - are most of us parents? i find it odd that people can froth about the small stuff, that people get pilloried for some really bizarre stuff on here while threads about drug use get a fairly "meh" response. (yes its a thread inspired by the coke using teachers assistant....)

why is that? genuinely interested to explore why coke use is seen as ok, and wonder what is not ok?

if its ok for the TA to use coke at the weekend, is it ok for them to smoke crack? or use heroin? doctors were mentioned on the last thread....would you undergo an operation knowing your doctor or surgeon had used coke? or smoked cannabis?

if its just part of life, where would you draw the line?
do people not realise what it takes to get that gram of coke at the pub at the weekend?

[Spuddybean]

I suppose it depends what you are used to. I grew up in a fairly permissive and affluent part of London and all my friends parents were professionals (teachers mainly) and they all smoked dope in the house. They also were hippy types who had regaled us with acid stories. We were all allowed to smoke dope at home when we got to about 15 too.

When i was 19 my parents friends offered me an e at a party (knowing i already did them) and another offered a line of coke when we went for dinner.

I am now 35 and a lot of my friends are teachers, they also smoke weed and do lines and e's. I used to teach and i think it's fairly common in more cosmopolitan areas (brighton etc).

i was shocked when i left London to find that people were so shocked about drug use. i always thought everyone was pretty laid back about it.

to those who say you wouldn't feel the same if someone close to you died or if you're children were doing it, i would say, i know people who died of alcohol related disease and lung cancer, yet i still smoke (occasionally) and drink. I also hope my dc do experiment, just as i did. Just as my parents generation were happy for us to. i would be sad if they smoked weed or fags habitually tho.

i haven't done drugs for about 10 years, i see it as something most people grow out of, like getting horribly drunk on shots.

DP on the other hand has never tried anything and is really anti drugs. So the dc's teenage years should be fun!

[honeytea]

what about home grown cannabis and foraged magic mushrooms vicar, are they OK?

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I don't take cocaine. And, I don't need to justify taking it. I just don't like the double standards. I also don't feel the need to police and interfere with other people's private lives unless there is a very good reason. The Third World is not a good enough reason unless you ban chocolate. Crime is not a good enough reason unless you legalise drugs and see if criminality goes down. Deaths are not a good enough reason unless you ban alcohol.

[squoosh]

When I was about 19 my mother warned me to never to accept a slice of cake if I was at a party as people sometimes laced them with drugs in an effort to lure innocent partygoers into a lifetime of addiction

Poor old hash brownies.

[honeytea]

Spuddy your situation sounds lots like mine. I have no idea how me and DP are going to agree on a drugs stance when we have teenagers.

[ThatVikRinA22]

no they fucking well arent!

did you miss the bit where i said im a copper? what do you think i do with home grown cannabis set ups?

do you know anything about those btw? the electric that they steal by rigging the meters?
who do you think pays for that then?
the houses they completely wreck?
ive had landlords sobbing when theyve seen their houses.

why do you think that that is ok?

[Scaredbutdoingit]

Absolutely agreed MrsTerryPratchett, and thats where things get squicky, because on one hand there aren't really any good reasons, and on the other hand there are a couple reasons nobody in the know wants to talk about.

[honeytea]

I ment having a couple of plants in your own home not a cannabis farm. Some of my mum's friends grow it in their greenhouses along with tomatos.

[Spuddybean]

Honey, we are already trying to negotiate! i can't in all honesty be a hypocrite and he cant abandon his principles - so it's stale mate. we'll just have to do 'mum thinks x and dad thinks y'. we will also need to do this about god! there is no meeting in the middle. :(

[ThatVikRinA22]

ok, so let me ask all those in favour of drugs, who think they re harmless and who wants to legalise them.

if you have children, how would you feel if your child began to take heroin?

would you still want them legalised then?
you would surely have to legalise them all - Heroin and opiates included.

[honeytea]

oh goodness god and drugs, your right there does seem to be no meeting in the middle!

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Did anyone say that drugs are harmless? I don't think so.

In answer to the legalisation issue... Yes, legalise everything. Because criminalising it doesn't work. Regulate it very heavily, tax it to the hilt, educate very heavily, fund rehabs properly and spend Police time on other things.

[Spuddybean]

i don't think they should be legalised. i think part of the appeal is they are illegal.

[Nuttyprofessor]

Yes this is a very strange place, being wealthy or using a tutor is a hanging offence but licking methodone off the pavement in front of your child, or smoking pot at their party perfectly ok.

[squoosh]

No one wants their child to do heroin, heroin is a vile, vile drug.

But if your child wanted to do heroin today they could walk out onto the streets and find it quite easily. The only people who benefit from the criminalization of drugs are the dealers.

[Scaredbutdoingit]

Vicar

1st - Drugs are not harmless, just as they are not necessarily harmful. Its all in the use and the user. Water in excess is a poison.

If my child took heroin, I would be infinitely concerned about the reasons why, and what he hoped to gain from heroin that he was not gaining elsewhere. If it were experimentation, I would hope he had access to honest, clean communication about what the actual risks and benefits were.

Legalise them all? Yes.

Educate everyone about the facts, not the spin-stories? Yes.

Create a clean market and support network for people who are already addicted and/or wish to stop taking. Yes.

Create a clean market and accurate information about risks/benefits (plus support networks) for those who haven't taken but are curious. Yes.

[FreckledLeopard]

But Vicar, having a glass of wine doesn't cause destruction of rainforests, gang war etc, simply because it's legal and regulated. Look at how gang-crime rose under Prohibition to see that alcohol can cause just as much havoc when illegal.

Frankly, I will admit to being a middle-class occasional drug user. I've dabbled here and there, will occasionally smoke a joint or take pills/acid at a party. I personally don't like coke or anything harder, but that's not to say that I would judge people who do the occasional line.

I think, unless you look at alcohol/cigarettes as a drug within the same ballpark as all other substances, then creating an artificial 'ring' around illegal drugs and condemning them out of hand is fairly ridiculous. Yes, some sunstances are legal and others aren't. But that doesn't really mean much IMO - if you're going to take a mood-altering substance, be it alcohol, coke, then it's pretty irrelevant how it's categorised. You either abstain from all or accept that each of these substances can have a positive or negative impact on a person, depending on how such substances are used or abused.

Having grown up with a father who drank a lot, I'd far rather be around someone that was stoned than drunk.

The crime associated with drugs could be overcome by regulation and de-criminalisation. As to whether taking drugs falls into some kind of 'moral issue' category, I can't see why it would, from a purely chemical basis. Why should taking ecstasy be morally dubious, when drinking four pints of lager isn't?

Alcoholism and drug addiction can and do destroy lives and families. But the all drugs=bad attitude doesn't really sit well with my ideas on critical thinking and analysis. So, laissez-faire, perhaps, but I don't really subscribe to black and white thinking on this issue.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I've been around groups of people who took heroin. I don't take it because I'm not an idiot, not because it is illegal.

[honeytea]

I don't think we should legalise all drugs, I just think that some drugs should be legalised. If heroin was legal I would try to educate my child about it (the same as I would do if it is not legal) if they decided to take it (as an adult) that would be their choice and I would be sad if they became addicted to it, but I would also be sad if my child became addicted to alcohol, I wouldn't be more sad that they were addicted to heroin.

[noddyholder]

Just because you can trace drugs to communities in south america does not mean anything to the child cowering in his/her bedroom unwashed and neglected because mum/dad is drunk again. Destruction is destruction to the person experiencing it.

[OneMoreChap]

VicarInaTutu Wed 03-Oct-12 15:37:16
ok, so let me ask all those in favour of drugs,

Nope, that's not me

who think they re harmless

nope, not me either.

and who wants to legalise them.

That would be me.

if you have children,

Yep, me again

how would you feel if your child began to take heroin?

Now? I'd be terrified. No idea what the hell it has been cut with, what sort of works they'd used, unless smoking it.

Legalised, with consistent quality and provided with clean works. Still be upset.

would you still want them legalised then?

I'd be much happier with them on legal heroin than illegal, for sure.

you would surely have to legalise them all - Heroin and opiates included.

Absolutely, or it allows organised crime back in.
We'e already seeing that with punitive taxes oon alcohol/tobacco.

[whois]

To the poster on p1 asking what the difference between heroin and cocaine are:

Heroin is physically addictive and will f your life up.

Cocaine is only psychologically addictive will only f your life up, if you are already f up.  Exactly the same way in which alcohol has the unfortunate ability to f you up, if you are already f up person with an addictive and destructive personality.


I don't think a hand-wringing "all drugs are evil and only good for nothing addicts take them" is accurate or helpful.

The reality of the situation is a lot of very normal people enjoy taking drugs, occasionally. The mind altering state can be exciting, interesting and fun.

I don't really see why this bothers so many people?

I am not for legalising drugs, because before mcat was criminalised there were too many fucking retards taking it 'cos it was legal' who had no business taking drugs and who weren't being safe. But I don't think criminalising a large minority of the otherwise law abiding population is a good solution either.

[ThatVikRinA22]

so why do people think drugs are illegal?

surely, legalising and taxing to the hilt, regulating will just do what happens now with cigs and booze - people break into places to steal them, to supply them cheap to those who cant afford them.
there will always be a black market for anything expensive, legal or not.
those cigs that people stand and sell on the corner of the street.....where do you think they come from?

people steal alcohol to order. crates of it. its incredibly easy to walk out of a store. i went a few weeks ago to a supermarket which had £10,000 cigs stolen.

im not convinced that legalising but making it untouchable by expense would help.

i do know that the really big jobs ive been to, invovling fire arms, attempts on peoples lives and gang culture are all drug related.

it clearly is a class thing, that heroin is seen as the drug of addicts while cocaine is seen as ok due to the fact that professionals take it.

i find this place so odd, where taking cocaine is fine, but give your child a fruit shoot and get lynched.
heroin isnt fine though. dont pretend its because its addictive - so is cocaine.
at least be honest.

[MrSunshine]

At least be honest yourself, you know heroin is totally different to cocaine, and not only because of who uses it.

[OneMoreChap]

VicarInaTutu
so why do people think drugs are illegal?

Habit? [viz tobacco and alcohol are legal]

surely, legalising and taxing to the hilt, regulating will just do what happens now with cigs and booze - people break into places to steal them, to supply them cheap to those who cant afford them....im not convinced that legalising but making it untouchable by expense would help.

No, that's the point.
You don't make it untouchable by expense or you let criminals back in

i do know that the really big jobs ive been to, invovling fire arms, attempts on peoples lives and gang culture are all drug related.

Are they - or are they related to organized crime?

^heroin isnt fine though. dont pretend its because its addictive - so is cocaine.
at least be honest.^

So's tobacco... possibly more so.