To wonder who is actually responsible for rising murder rates in london

[SaucyJane]

So slimy frog faced Nigel Farage is blaming Sadiq Khan as mayor and particularly for reducing stop and search. There are also other calls for Khan to resign.

But surely there is only so much Khan can do if the government makes huge cuts to the police. And weren't those cuts made under Maggie May?

I didn't vote for Khan to be the mayor, and I am no fan of his, but it seems to me that it is unfair to blame it on him, and that the answer is probably partly government cuts and partly some of his changes since being mayor.

AIBU?

@CuboidalSlipshoddy

Isn't it pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that if you have a large amount of drugs available to everyone then obviously usage will increase.

Hence why there are so many more people smoking tobacco and alcohol than there are smoking weed, doing coke/crack popping ket and ecstasy, molly etc etc

You're saying only a small number of people smoke cigarettes. Idk where in London you live but I see people smoking all day everyday. Not that many people walking around with crack pipes though.

Plus, what about all the work the NHS will be required to do helping all the people who are physically and mentally damaged through taking all these really dangerous substances. For example, ket use makes people's bladders shrink up and they often need surgery. Just one example.

Also, obviously police will be required to do more as many drugs affect people's ability to drive causing accidents, crashes and then there's the fact that drugs like coke can make people really angry/psyched up so you've got more chance of fighting/stabbing/shooting etc

It is not true that young people aren’t doing coke. The ones with money ARE and they have to get it somewhere. Weed is just now a norm. I smell it everywhere when I go to certain towns around here. My DD knows kids who smoke it daily. They too are getting it from somewhere. They are getting it from London! Maybe the London kids aren’t taking it but they most certainly are making money off getting it out to the affluent suburbs

All this for the authorities to deal with while funding is being cut....

@PookieDo thank god someone who actually leaves the house

But countries like Portugal have legalised drugs, and hasn't the problem got a lot better since? And usage didn't increase.

@YoloSwaggins which drugs? All drugs like @CuboidalSlipshoddy is suggesting? Obviously legalising weed for medicinal purposes etc etc can have positive effects but I'm pretty sure giving out drugs for free (all drugs which means heroin and fentanyl etc) as @CuboidalSlipshoddy has said she thinks is the wisest decision would have a detrimental affect on murder rates amongst young people in London.

Plus look what happened with LEGAL highs. That didn't turn out so well did it. Just imagine how you'd feel if one of your relatives had been killed by taking a legal drug.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/legal-high-deaths-uk-girl-15-dies-newton-abbot-devon-park-new-psychoactive-substance-reaction-a7842536.html%3famp

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/drug-deaths-england-and-wales-3744-overdose-poisoning-legal-highs-new-psychoactive-substances-a7872241.html%3famp

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/20/cambridge-student-died-taking-legal-high-two-months-outlawed/amp/

Isn't it pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that if you have a large amount of drugs available to everyone then obviously usage will increase.

Well, since it's all so obvious, presumably the solutions are obvious as well. All we need to do is remove drugs from circulation by making them illegal and enforcing that law, and all will be well. How would you say that is going?

UNODC publish a handy spreadsheet showing the street prices of cocaine and heroin broken down by country. A swift moment making a graph, and we see that the price of a gram of cocaine or heroin is now much lower than it was in 1990. How's all that "making it illegal" stuff working out?

Plus look what happened with LEGAL highs.

You mean, "psychoactive drugs which the law hadn't caught up with yet which weren't actually illegal, but which were not manufactured for human use, were of uncontrolled quality and dosage, and were sold via uncontrolled retail channels with no supervision or control while the law played whackamole with them?" Those ones.

Anyway, I'm glad to see you know all the answers. Another fifty years and then maybe you'll win, eh?

Plus, what about all the work the NHS will be required to do helping all the people who are physically and mentally damaged through taking all these really dangerous substances.

Are they more dangerous than alcohol? We cope, and although it's not ideal, no-one sane is calling for prohibition.

How well would you say prohibition worked in terms of reducing alcohol harm and overall criminality in the USA, 1920--1933?

I’m not against legalisation but I am very doubtful a Tory gov would ever have the guts to go down this road

I am very doubtful a Tory gov would ever have the guts to go down this road

Many years ago, when the troubles were still in full bloody spate, I had a trip up the Shankill Road in Belfast with a man who generally saw himself as a bit of a free-marketeer. I outlined my observation that there was a PhD in the relative quality of wall art: really high-quality murals of Bobby Sands (there's a long tradition of Catholic church art) versus sketchy murals of UDF heroes (Protestant church art is much less prized). Had I noticed, he asked, that you can easily see the sectarian loyalties in working class areas, but you can't in middle class areas? Isn't it convenient for the middle classes that the working classes are so busy knocking lumps out of each other on sectarian grounds that the middle classes can exploit them shamelessly without anyone noticing?

Paddy, I said (he really was called Paddy), for a man of the right, it's interesting that your analysis is pure Marxism. And on we drove, in thoughtful silence.

You can argue that the illegal drug trade keeps the working classes from uniting in the face of oppression, and therefore that it's in conservative interests to leave areas beset with drug violence to fester. But equally, you can argue (as Bel04 I suspect would) that the burden of drug use falls disproportionately on the deprived, and therefore legalisation would have the same effect. It's difficult to know who's right.

Would legalisation make drugs more prevalent because they would be more available? Would it make them less prevalent, because fewer people would have an incentive to promote them and they would lose their rebel aura of cool? Would the fall in street crime balance any increase in usage? Would harm be reduced (Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Mick Jagger are evidence that heroin addiction when it's clean, high quality produce isn't quite the killer it's made out to be)? It would be nice to have some facts. Unfortunately, there's rather more certainty than there is knowledge.

Bring back the electric chair?

Did we ever have the electric chair??

We're not Alabama with a retired Big Yellow Mama sitting waiting to give someone a heated embrace!

I am not sure drugs is the issue actually
It’s a societal , peer pressure lack of hope issue . Watch any of the films and the drugs are an accessory not the actual source

Drugs and gangs have always been abiut but now we do know how to address the issue partially

But can’t or won’t invest into it

Sorry I don't know the facts about Portugal but you can Google it

Obviously they didn't give drugs out for free....just legalised them....

Classic 😂 have a nice discussion about a social issue and someone comes out with a "bring back the electric chair!!"

Not even "bring back the death penalty"

Just straight to electric chair. Wow. This made me have a legit laughing fit at work...

I read a lot about this (am a Londoner) what resonates with me is the comments about how youngsters will argue outragedly on social media and take offense at any tiny perceived slight, even on vague acquaintances, then add in lack of discipline at school and home, total melting pot. It’s school holidays, I dread to think what will happen in the summer.

Gang life is portrayed as cool, gangsta music selling a dream about mega riches, hot bitches, fast cars, frankly fuck off with that! It’s not cool, the average teen in this situation is lucky not to be dead or in prison past 18

I thought it was Lennon and yoko who took heroin, not the much squeakier clean McCartney?

Is Jagger clean now?

Electric chair?

www.just4sofas.co.uk/superior-electric-reclining-chair.html?92=4

@alwaysgrumpyporridge 😂😂😂

Bring back the electric recliner leather chair from DFS!

As a prison detox nurse I support the Portuguese model of decriminalising small amounts in possession and criminalising the big dealers with harsher sentencing. Banning mind altering substances doesn't stop people using them, it drives its use underground and increase drug related crime and violence.

The death penalty doesn't deter people from committing crime by the way 🙄

I am not sure drugs is the issue actually

They aren't..,

The issues are

Childhood sexual abuse
Childhood neglect
Domestic violence
Poverty
Homelessness
Parental addiction
Parental mental illness

Collectively known as

Adverse Childhood Experiences

I support the Portuguese model of decriminalising small amounts in possession and criminalising the big dealers with harsher sentencing.

Which makes no sense, logically.

If the stuff is legal to possess, where are people supposed to buy the stuff that is legal to possess from, if not from dealers? If that dealing is illegal, where does the money that the legal possessors spend end up? If that dealing is illegal, what reason is there to believe that the products being sold illegal are what they say they are, free from impurities and correctly dosed?

Legal possession, illegal sale forces a link between the legal overground users and the illegal underground suppliers. It's that linkage, with the flow of money from purchasers who see themselves as upstanding citizens doing nothing wrong, to gangland criminals, which makes the whole thing so toxic.

If you legalise possession but make the sales themselves illegal, you are simply making it easier to make a living as a drug dealer because your clients have less reason to be furtive and no reason at all to turn you in. When possession is illegal a dealer runs the risk of being given up by a user looking to avoid a prosecution. When possession is legal, your clients aren't getting arrested so (a) can't turn you in and (b) can continue to buy your product.

Yes, it avoids cluttering up the legal system. Yes, it arguably reduces some harm to users, although they are still at risk from contaminated, adulterated and, paradoxically, the occasional pure dose. But if your intent is to put drug dealers, and their associated violence, out of business, legalising possession while leaving dealing illegal seems to combine all the worst facets of prohibition with all the worst facets of legalisation.