So with Olivia's killer getting 42 years will people now recognise that dealing cannabis is not a victimless crime ?

[AnyaMarx]

Just as the title says

I work in this area and have for 15 years.

When police raid a cannabis factory all the comments on social media are "go catch some real criminals "
"It's just plants !"

Well done plod you caught some plants .

Do people seriously not realise that cannabis factories and dealing are linked to organised crime groups who run about with guns ?
And who kill people?

Maybe now this
Abhorrent crime has been tried people might realise their spliff isn't victimless.

I've dealt with countless factories where modern slavery has played a part - a couple of young Vietnamese kids living In Squalor , acting as gardeners, all to fund some organised crime group , the likes of which Olivia's murderer was .

Now will people stop vilifying police who raid cannabis factories and shut them down ?

Somehow I doubt it .

I believe it should be legal, because if people had an option on a Friday of either getting drunk to decompress after a busy week or to a chilled out cannabis cafe a lot of people, though not everyone would pick it. A very different night- pub equals possibly totally drunk, fighting, arguing, drunk driving, hangover plus the horrendous affect it has on your body.

Alcohol is a devastating drug, has destroyed so many lives. I'm the child of an alcoholic and it nearly got me.
A night in a weed cafe- few smokes/ edibles etc..chilled out, tired, pain relief, creativity perhaps. Spend a load on munchies for the way home and maybe a movie or some music and wake up fresh as a Daisy. No fights in the street.
Plus the tax revenue and small businesses would do great.

It's laughable weed is illegal and alcohol legal

I think we need an evidence based case study .

Not just cannabis. Everything. Heroin / crack addiction is the cause of most shoplifting

And it's the same people who do about 30 + shopliftings before they get caught , sent down for a few weeks , back out , back on the merry go round .

The amount of work this takes to get a sentence of 4 weeks is ridiculous and not remotely worth it . It's just makes no economic sense. And addiction is something anyone can just be punished out of . That much is obvious.

Addiction isnt rather

A huge cannabis factory was busted near me, last year. After it had been cleared out, several very high end posh cars were seen near by. I could not help but think it was pissed off drug dealers (the ones higher up).

She drank 7 litres of water in 90 minutes. I too am of that generation, but it didn't make me not take MDMA, it just made me aware that I shouldn't drink a lot of water on it, it's well known not to do this. Similarly - don't take shit like ketamine and then go and have a bath.

Take the dealers out . Crime rates would fall for gang related violence and firearms offences .

Give addicts a safe haven and prescription drugs, crime rates for theft , car crime and shoplifting would fall.

Death rates would fall from overdoses.

The nhs wouldn't be swamped with overdoses , cries for help , patching people up and sending them out to the same issues

I had one ( lovely ) addict who I had a great relationship with , but when the cost to services was audited over a 3 year period she had cost police and nhs half a million pounds - in 3 years. That's police time, ambulance time, hospital admissions, sections , treatment ( that wasn't right for them and never worked ) prison time , man hours .

There HAS to be a more sensible solution to this .

Plus all the arguments about child slavery, criminal gangs, cannabis factory houses would be totally done. If it was legal on a licensed premises from only a licensed supplier there would be zero gangs selling it as the market would be gone, plus jobs, tax, less crime, child slavery and we could really do with the economic boost. It's just mad it's not legal it's a huge potential revenue.

A very small number of people do get some issues but it's vastly less than alcohol or other drugs (I don't think anyone has ever died directly from weed) and it doesn't cause liver failure.

Johann Hari's book Chasing the Scream goes through the huge amount of evidence from multiple countries that legalising and regulating is better both for people with addictions and society. The evidence is really clear, and the logic makes sense - If people who are addicted to heroin are prescribed it then there aren't dealers pushing heroin onto a new generation of potential customers. The people who are currently addicted are also more likely to be able to get a job and form relationships, which then makes them much more likely to be able to quit. And even if they don't they are able to live a much more normal life. People with addictions almost inevitably had traumatic childhoods and weren't given any other ways to cope.

YANBU OP.

If it's legal how do we, as in the deprived area were this happened, keep our kids off it? The government will impose age restrictions. Like alcohol, children will want to buy it, so there'll still be an illegal trade. The issue with legalising heroin use, is that there isn't completely safe limits. Which leaves babies/children in dangerous homes. The cannabis on sale across Liverpool is mostly skunk and mixed with addictive substances etc. There's always going to be a market for street drugs.

I agree .

My lovely addict client died at 27 . All that money and time thrown at them was meaningless because they couldn't just be punished out of their addiction that resulted from the most traumatic experience in childhood.

Alcohol is far far more dangerous than most drugs . Even babies born with class a addiction have no lasting g damage unlike foetal alcohol syndrome.

Neil woods is a breath of fresh air but pissing in the wind . (Ex undercover drugs cop)

Why is the government too afraid to do a study and get evidence based feedback.

"the huge amount of evidence from multiple countries that legalising and regulating is better both for people with addictions and society"

Those societies aren't comparable to the UK and/or have a government that will spend money to sort out social issues. Taking Dovecot as an example. How do we put it to all the residents, who had the same shit childhoods, do the same crappy minimum wage jobs, who went to the same shit schools, that the smackhead, burglar etc is going to get a load of funding thrown at them?

@Ponoka7 Drugs like heroin would be available with a prescription for anyone who was addicted - there would still be a black market but massively reduced. Portugal has done this, and areas in England have actually successfully trialled it in the past. It would be harder for kids to get hold of, not easier.

Ok how do you keep your kids off it .

1. you parent.
2. how do you keep them off cheap vodka ?
3. the less illicit it is the less shine is has
4. most teens will experience and experiment with alcohol and drugs whether you know it or like it - it's how they have been brought up and what boundaries and support they have that makes the difference.

My cop friend wi t let her son go out with more than a quid in his pocket . She knows his friends smoke weed . Another cop friend allowed her teen to smoke in the shed where she could monitor and supervise .

Better than letting them go get pissed at a sleep over I'd say .

How does anyone stop any child doing something they shouldn't ? You parent . You set boundaries. You discipline . You have consequences that mean something and you do t allow your 12 year old to
Rule the household cos they punch a door .

People do manage to raise perfectly decent kids . Temptation is always around . Legal or not .

@Ponoka7 replied to your first message as you were posting the second, sorry for multiple reponses! It would be less money being spent on people with addictions, not more.

And as pointed out - the black market would be much ch reduced - addicts would get prescribed medication to use at a designated place in f safety . 12 year olds couldn't just get a gram of coke or crack like they can now .

It's also worth reading Gabor Mate's In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts to get a really good picture of the lives addicts have lived to get where they are. 'Because they like it' doesn't begin to cover it.

@Ponoka7 you're right. We don't have a government that will change tack and deal with addiction sensibly. We don't have an electorate that will accept such a government because people are pig ignorant and like to 'other' people, and because we don't talk honestly about drugs and addiction at home and in schools.

And a lot of violence I deal with is related to drugs debt .

That would also be much reduced .

I'm a previous role I did a course of problem oriented policing - it's about thinking outside the box .

And yet - we can't . Because the law is indeed an ass .

and psychosis, and brain damage, and paranoia and violence, and relationship breakdown and educational and professional failure...

weed is just as damaging physically and mentally, and also causes a lot of violence, and it is quite dangerous to be trying to sell it as a "safe" drug.

Look at the threads on Amsterdam, how people who decided to allow weed are rich people a safe distance away, and the poorer people who have to live with it hate it so much, but cant get away from it

Of course it wouldn't be harder, why would it? So the working poor struggle to afford prescription charges, but we give it to addicts? As asked, how do you think the working poor in these areas would react to that? Some of the antisocial behaviour of addicts wouldn't stop, but because it's legal we just live with that now?

"How does anyone stop any child doing something they shouldn't ? You parent"

The majority of the parents in areas like that one don't parent, that's the point. Many kids want a better life than they are seeing, so don't touch them because they don't want a criminal record.
We aren't at a point to legalise, we need to invest in services. Improve the life chances for people in similar areas to were this happened and give people enough money to live on.

I actually do think that the ideal policy for cannabis is more complicated than heroin, as it would be more of a pop-to-the-shops purchase. I really really dislike cannabis, I know a lot of people who were damaged by it. I think it's a shame when conversations about whether prohibition, legalisation or various degrees of regulation in between turn into an argument between some people cheering for the drug itself as a panacea with no side-effects, and other reacting to that, justifiably. But all the points the OP has made about the effects of prohibition are true, and it would be possible to combine regulation, public health campaigning and harm reduction. I do think we've got a lot of proof that the war on drugs approach is a total failure, and that trying some alternative approaches might be worth a go.

I think one argument for legislation is that there would be some monitoring and accountability.

I see a lot of drug induced paranoia and psychosis.

But one "spliff" is never the same as another. There is no regulation.

I don't say any of this lightly . I have lost two family members to drugs , and now work in the area and within the law .

I've come to this conclusion after 15 years of trying to enforce unenforceable laws and seeing the results .

It would be harder to get hold of because currently there are dealers on the streets supplying people with daily addictions, and recruiting new customers as they go. And children getting sucked into gangs and along with that new lifelong addictions, and so the cycle continues. It's not just a theory, it's what happens where this is tried.

If something is t working - why is it not madness to continue to just rinse and repeat?

Is it not worth trialling with some case studies and monitored to see which actually works best and what the results are ?

Isn't the definition of madness to keep doing something that doesn't work ?