Anyone else absolutely shocked of three innocent people in Liverpool all drug related!!

[Toosadtocomprehend]

If anyone reading this that takes recreational drugs should be absolutely ashamed of the carnage that their habit is causing…an innocent 9 year old ,20 year old and 22 year old have lost their lives because of other people shitty pastimes …think think think before you snort or smoke that poison!!

Omg the number of people determined two wrongs does make a right afterall.

Of course there are a million things wrong in the world. This is one where a relatively straightforward action by individuals can directly save and improve lives, but no, people won't consider it while other wrongs are still going on. Really?

Coke is a filthy drug that fucks your coronary arteries. It's like playing Russian roulette and anyone with kids who uses it should be ashamed of themselves - not only are you exploiting other people's kids to get the stuff, you're putting your own kids at risk of being orphaned.

MDMA is a different matter. I don't use it myself but, compared to most other drugs including legal ones (alcohol, nicotine) it is incredibly safe, especially if used in controlled circumstances, and I think it could be legalised. Coke? never.

You do realise the argument against what you are saying is within your story but your trained professional lense rather than a real life one has made you too short sighted to realise it. I have in a personal capacity supported someone through similar, from getting involved in the first place, the move, then the raid and arrest the 4 year long wait for jail time even though he was really a victim. Fact of the matter is you are not looking at how they got involved in the first place. That is the root of the problem. There will always be buyers that's just a fact and whilst there are buyers there will be dealers and the set up. At the end of the day it all boils down to initial quality of life. If that was increased drug use would go down, simple. Telling people to just not buy drugs will never ever work.

This, this, this. People don’t understand how children get involved, it’s not always the children you think, let me explain.

At the school I work at I have seen this several times this year. Do you know what the dealers’ latest ploy is? They persuade a child to ferry a small amount of drugs in exchange for a takeaway or some cash. Some kids will do this because they are bored/have poor risk management/ want money/ want to feel grown up/ don’t like saying no to friendly adults/ on impulse. These people are charming, they know how to talk to kids.

The dealers then arrange for that child to be robbed. The child thinks they were robbed by a rival dealer so they get really scared, and now they know that they/ their family could get seriously hurt, but they also owe the original dealer money. So now they are willing to ferry more drugs, or be pimped out, “just once”.
People have said to me “Well, those kids were troubled, naughty boys who would have got into trouble anyway”. First of all, so what if they were? These are CHILDREN, often below the age of criminal responsibility But the dealers rarely choose the stand out “naughty” kids. They increasingly target children who are more likely to go under the radar. They like girls as well as boys, and they like articulate bright kids who can explain themselves if stopped.

Yes, the dealers are to blame, but if you take drugs, including cannabis, you are complicit in this. You are also a total skank. I don’t care what selfish reason you use to justify it to yourself.

I also don’t understand the argument for any type of legalisation. Why would we be OK with greater tolerance of intoxicated people?

That's the fundamental misunderstanding here. You are niave enough to believe that people stopping taking drugs is a viable solution.

It's not. Just the same as thinking people will stop using mobile phones is a viable solution. People are too selfish, ignorant (in the true sense of the word), normalised or obtuse to do this.

So you are aware but would rather stick to your ideological purity rather than condemn it. You’d rather pony score in an argument than recognise that the thing you are (either purposely or through sheer stubbornness blinkeredness) defending is actually part of the consumer culture you are holding up as evil.

I’m not going to respond to the insult or report then because I want the rest of the board to see your position and how you argue with people who disagree with you. This is not about me. It’s about all the kids (all over the world in fact) harmed by the illegal drug trade.

It is a one of the quirks of Western liberalism that exploitation in the East is terrible but that prostitution/ drug taking/ hard core porn are fine, victim free and empowering. It’s all the same exploitation.

"Instead you're blaming people who often turn to drugs due to woefully inadequate mental health support, poverty, abuse and many other reasons too numerous to mention."

Tbf that describes the man who ran into the Pratt-Kobel house. If there had been a different stance on the 80's we wouldn't be were we are today. Every dealer caught was seen as a victim back then. Pre the cuts after the shootings we've had there would be matrix patrols, sometimes every twenty minutes in that area (which I live in). Now there's no policing of the streets. For some reason they are not reporting the other two shootings in the area that's happened within a month. The Matrix patrols did make a difference. I'm glad that the interview this morning focused on wider policies, because this was the outcome predicted. The Police, or whoever decides these things has allowed L14 to go the way of Norris Green. There's a way of life happening that only early intervention can change.

The mobile phone comment always crops up on these threads weirdly as well.

Cocaine usage is off the scale in many areas.

I had someone excuse their usage as only buying the good stuff not the manky mixed cocaine, like it was made especially for their nose.

Would a big push campaign maybe help more educated users say no if they saw the devastation in black and white.

I can see how the younger teenagers who have nothing fall into dealing unfortunately, they're prey from the off if they haven't got a strong family support system or anything nice of their own.

Not true @sunnyqueen

The recent examples from my current school are children from very nice middle class homes. As a poster above explained- teenagers have poor risk management. They get themselves into situations that quickly escalate.

For example, the first time a local parent knew that their son was involved with a well known crime family was when he crashed a car into a tree (he was 14) that had a boot full of cocaine. He had been groomed and pressured into taking risky runs for the families shady nephew.

I have no idea what you are waffling on about. It's, again, irrelevant.

I don't think porn, drugs or prostitution are okay. Indeed I have specifically said upthread that I am against legalised prostitution and that I don't take drugs including alcohol.

I think you must keep quoting me by mistake.

Her poor mum will regret opening the door for the rest of her life.

30 years ago parents took control on drug dealers in Dublin and marched on their property calling them out for dealing "parents against drugs" it made a difference.

These days you'd be shot in the face it isn't an option for on the ground parents.

We can decriminalise/legalise drugs, take supply chain out of the gangs control. Support addicts properly. All good stuff. But then you’re still left with criminal gangs who will be looking for a new source of income. It’s a complex situation which I speculate has roots in poverty, disenfranchisement, lack of investment in services, and willingness for those of us in nice areas to turn a blind eye. There’s been documentaries on why young men join gangs and at the core they feel a sense of belonging and self worth in a gang that they don’t get from anywhere else.

To my mind, that’s the problem that needs addressing, tackling the roots of the issue. Very much not a quick fix though.

I think I keep missing your point @Miffee because it is buried in insults and flannel.

Just to be clear- you think illegal drugs are fine because people buy other unethical stuff?

The policies of governments on drugs is like their policies on the NHS or climate change or many other big issues, the problems that currently exist are too big to be solved within one party's time in office. Five years is nowhere near long enough to tackle a huge problem, it would take decades. The public are not patient enough to wait decades, they elect a party then get pissed off that they haven't magically fixed everything overnight. They get worked up by things that actually harm their day to day lives like employment or the cost of living, so governments focus their attention on these things because they want to remain in power.

The drugs problem, like the problems with the NHS or with climate change, can only be solved if they are taken out of the hands of elected officials. We need experts in place to direct policy and for them to be secure in their position for many years. This of course isn't acceptable to the public either, because they will say it's undemocratic (and it would be) that unelected people are deciding policy at the taxpayer's expense, especially when to begin with it will be very expensive for little positive gain.

But lots of people do assume it's other peoples children that get involved. That they're from chaotic backgrounds or whatever and that a stable upbringing in a nice area will protect their children from becoming involved, or that the children are just horrible and selfish and looking for easy money. It's ignorant to think a lot don't think this is the case hence why there's not a tonne of pressure to address it.

No. I never once said that.

I think it's incredibly niave and grossly hypocritical to think that the solution to the drug problem is getting individual consumers to stop buying them.

I think the issue is complex, global and societal and indistinguishable from many other consumer goods that cause misery.

All those calling for legalisation and control of drugs, what would that actually look in the UK?

Dedicated drugs shops, run by pharmacists that specialise in narcotics? A registration system so you don’t exceed your daily allowance? High security to minimise the risk of robbery and ram raids? Do we even want to ‘normalise’ the taking of cocaine, cannabis, heroin etc? What is the impact on drug driving? How will our NHS cope with overdoses, drug reactions or harm caused by hallucinations? I could go on…

But, importantly, do you seriously think the drug dealers, growers and suppliers of today will just disappear quietly, accept a loss in income and happily take up a menial (but legal) job elsewhere?

I grew up in Essex in the 80’s and 90’s, I thought it was bad then with the supply of ecstasy, the Rettendon murders on my doorstep and seeing the down and outs from my reputable secondary school taking recreational drugs at the weekend. That was enough to put me off for life, I never want that to become ‘legal’ or ‘normal’. Too many decent people lost their lives due to drugs (overdoses/drug driving/misadventure whilst high etc), and it’s far worse now. Legalisation would simply make it ‘acceptable’ but no less dangerous for the end user and the demand on rehabilitation and hospital services would be immense (and that’s the minimum impact!).

I hate to say it but I used coke in my 20's and feel awful about it - especially now I see our drug problem in England.

Recently - I think week before last - I saw a horse drawn hearse with a coffin on it's way to the local cemetery and when it came out of cemetery, had a child/teenager inside - can't help thinking that could've been due to drugs/gang related crime.

We need to get a hold of our drugs/gang related issues in this country.

Yeah the difference is I think the problem there is that we apparently accept that if something only effects "chaotic" kids from poor backgrounds then it won't get addressed.

Yes and even when people do "understand" they feel insulated from it because they feel confident their children aren't the ones who will be targeted. If only those children's parents were better (ie generally lived more like them) their children wouldn't be at risk.

Of course there's no quick fix, but making drug use among decent people unacceptable, like drink driving has become following successful campaigns, would be a good start.

Yes, the gangs would find another trade using exploited vulnerable children, so there's a lot of work to do to fix that too, but in the short term, disrupting the trade would make a difference.

If drugs are all legalised I still wouldn't touch them. I believe that fewer people would.

Agreed. We're surrounded by alcohol and despite the advertising and sponsorship promoting it, there are still substantial numbers of people who don't consume it at all.

Transform Drugs has a number of interesting policy suggestions and reports.

transformdrugs.org/

If the next hit a drug addict takes is legal, cheaper, cleaner, doesn't add to the addicts debt with their dealer will the world be a tiny bit better or worse?

IMO the world is a very tiny bit better.

Whether their supply is legal or not there are always going to be addicts. What can be mitigated is the criminality which feeds off addiction.

With better, more honest, information about the effects and risks of different recreational drugs and clean, legal supply I believe fewer people will end up in addiction in the first place.