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 .

Or distilling their own without knowledge and poisoning themselves with methanol. You literally can't put the genie back in the bottle. Humans have been using substances for as long as they've existed. You can't operate on a prohibitionist model, you can only manage it. Harm reduction works.

I think that many people are imagining current addicts being given prescriptions and it solving the illegal supply. But people living shit lives will always want something to to self medicate with. They will fuel the illegal trade, knowing that eventually they can go on to cheap prescriptions. But it will help the obesity crisis.

As I said to a pp.
I think that many people are imagining current addicts being given prescriptions and it solving the illegal supply. But people living shit lives will always want something to to self medicate with. They will fuel the illegal trade, knowing that eventually they can go on to cheap prescriptions. It will help the obesity crisis. Of course the illegal trade won't get reduced in terms of the effect. The criminals will fight it out for a reduced (in theory) market, that will mean more violence and then looking for customers outside the percriptions, underage customers and those who wouldn't medically qualify, or those who need to hide their use from child services etc. Portugal's population doesn't compare with the UK'S. Where this shooting happened is completely lawless, thanks to the cuts. A lot of investment would be needed, for years, before decriminalisation went to the planning stage.

@Ponoka7 so what is your suggestion? To keep going with what we're doing now, which is a proven failure?

Even if the investment takes years (and a policy like this one should take years to implement, it takes thought and planning), how is not doing anything better?

It's complex, but if the Matrix was used, as it used to be before Covid and policing was at the levels before the cuts, the shooting of Olivia wouldn't have happened. A prescription for amphetamine would be cheaper than slimming tablets. A prescription for drugs would be cheaper than drinking. Decriminalise in an area such as Dovecot and you create a dependency on drugs.

@Ponoka7 the thing is that you can't just hand out prescriptions, and nobody is suggesting that. It has to come hand in hand with investment in people who want to quit. You need to look at countries that practice harm reduction and treatment models and learn from them. And yes, that's going to mean a radical change in thinking. The UK is going to need to wean itself off its hardcore capitalist Devil take the hindmost model and lots of people are going to scream about it.

But the evidence is clear: harm reduction works. If done right, it will even work where you are. Will things be perfect? No. Will they be better than they are now? More than likely yes.

we do have a lot of policies in the uk to reduce harm

Compared to other countries? What other countries exactly? Those that have a death penalty for drug dealing?

@Nimbostratus100 no, compared to countries which treat drug addiction as a health issue, not a criminal law issue. There's a reason why the average age of heroin addicts in the Netherlands has continued to rise - the existing ones are living longer because they have access to safe needles and safe drugs. Many of them actually hold down jobs. And because of good prevention, fewer young people are becoming dependent on heroin. Drug education in schools is excellent.

In Portugal, drugs are illegal - but if you are arrested, you aren't slung straight into jail. You're offered treatment to get into recovery instead. The police focus is on the importers and the suppliers, not users. The infrastructure is there to provide addicts with the treatment they need.

Meanwhile here in the UK, there's virtually nothing in the NHS. Addiction treatment is left to the private sector and the charity sector, which means that access to rehab is either limited (with programmes far too short to have an effect and not enough places on those) or unaffordable. The reasons why people are addicted aren't addressed because we have a culture of blaming people for their own adverse situation.

There isn't a country which has eliminated addiction. It isn't possible. But it is absolutely possible to reduce the slavery, criminality, poverty and impacts on families from addiction. We just don't want to do it.

the drug situation in netherlands is appalling, and out of control in many areas. The people who make the "permissive" rules are not the one who have to live in those areas, where lives are totally destroyed, not because individuals are taking drugs themselves, but because they are trapped by poverty in areas where drugs are rife.

AS to the number of dead, they can be tracked by the house prices dropping along the canals that they most frequently float down.....

@Nimbostratus100 I would argue that the problem there is poverty, not drugs policy. Poverty and drug use are closely linked, which should be obvious. And yes, there are problems and there are areas where things are bad.

In 2021 there were 294 confirmed drug deaths in the Netherlands. 104 of those were down to opiates.

And you're describing the Netherlands as if it's some kind of drugs armageddon with bodies floating in the canals daily - I'd like to see where you got that data from (I am Dutch so I can read Dutch language articles if that is all you can fine). All the data I've seen prompted by your post suggests that the Netherlands are doing rather better than the UK.

I got the "data" through having friends their families trapped in the poorer areas of amsterdam. WE have visited a few times, but tbh, it isn't somewhere I would choose to return to, and many of the stories are harrowing

@Nimbostratus100 so that's small scale anecdote generalised to an entire country. Therefore meaningless. Policy is made at a population level, and at a population level the Netherlands are doing better than most other countries and are right at the bottom of the league for death rates from drug use.

Nobody ever said that harm reduction was a perfect policy that would eliminate the negatives of drug use and addiction 100% for everyone. But it is a damn sight more effective than what we have now in the UK. I'm sorry for your friends in Amsterdam. There are similar areas in Rotterdam, Den Haag and Utrecht too. It's a direct consequence of poverty in inner city areas. It isn't proof that harm reduction is worse than prohibition and the punitive approach.

@pointythings but the point of this thread was that decriminalisation would stop dealing, not stop drug deaths. Walk round Amsterdam and dealers whisper to you what they are selling. Legalising prostitution has opened the market even more for trafficking young women.

"But it is absolutely possible to reduce the slavery, criminality, poverty and impacts on families from addiction"

I still don't see how giving people access to cheaper drugs will stop them self medicating. People resented families having enough money to live on via tax credits, no-one is going to vote for the spending needed. So we would get a half way replica of what other countries have tried and it will destroy deprived communities.

@Ponoka7 I don't think legalisation will stop dealing. But it will reduce it and the impact it has. This is about harm reduction, not harm elimination. Things were not better in Amsterdam before prostitution was legalised, they were worse. The underlying problem there is with people trafficking, not the prostitution itself. The main Dutch Union organisation is working actively to support sex workers in terms of employment rights, provision of pensions, sick pay etc. This is not accessible to trafficked women (obviously) but the solution here is to fund that secion of the police force which deals with people trafficking.

Your last paragraph shows you still do not understand what legalisation is about. It is not about access to cheaper drugs. It is about creating a framework where drug use is treated as a medical problem, not a criminal one. It is about reducing the stigma around substance misuse and addiction. It is about having the infrastructure in place for people to use safely, but also for people to seek help safely without fear of arrest and jail. However, you are quite right that in selfish Britain, people won't vote for this. It's a shameful indictment of what our electorate are like - changing to a harm reduction model will make life better for so many people, most of them poor. But our selfish voters won't have it.

pointythings has it .

Please do y miss the point - it's not
About maki g drugs cheap and a free for all - and if you believe that you clearly dont understand the nature of addiction.

I'm a huge fan of Russel brand and his take on this - he's gone all hippy zen these days and good for him - but he speaks as an ex addict (heroin) and he's a huge advocate of treating addiction as a health issue not a criminal one. And I
Agree 100% with him . Once a person is addicted to something it's not just as easy as saying "it's bad dont do it "

In my early career, I tried desperately to find help for a young woman with an addiction that wasn't even illegal but had a massive massive detrimental impact on her health , and anyone she came into co tact with while under the influence. It was a most unusual addiction of a perfectly legal substance.

She died from it at 27 . It' was something that cost £1.55 from any high street store . She gave blow jobs to get it . She had a million criminal behaviour orders saying stop it . Like that works ? You cannot simply punish addiction out of a person who is so damaged they look to escape at any cost .

People think of addicts and stereo type them .

This young women opened my eyes and I had real affection for her . I tried all sorts to get her help . And she looked me square in the eye one days and said " I've looked . There is nothing out there for me . I class you as a friend . Thank you "

She absolutely broke my heart . She was full of potential at 14 . At 15 , something happened to her that broke her as a person and she had to hide from it at every opportunity.

Nothing illegal in what she chose as her addiction. But she did cause mayhem when under the influence.

Legalising drug use wouldn't be any worse than what is happening now . It would help those who need it and knock the bottom out of criminal gangs who profit from others misery .

And we need to invest in looking at addiction as a health issue

Take that money out of law enforcement and treat addicts - not criminalise them . Trust me .

@AnyaMarx it's so sad to see so many posters with the blinkers firmly on. It's still all about Being Seen To Be Doing Something About Drugs rather than actually addressing the problem.

Many years ago when I was working in research, there was a study into the efficacy of giving prisoners being released who were at risk of drugs a dose of Naloxone to have with them, because when they got out, a lot of them would go to score drugs as a first port of call and then overdose because their systems were no longer used to the quantity they were taking. We struggled to recruit because prisons didn't want to be seen to be 'condoning' drug use. They were perfectly happy to condone overdose deaths, though.

It's linked to organised crime, human trafficking etc precisely because it's illegal. If it were legalised all of the shady underground activities around it wouldn't happen because there'd be no need for them.

You mean the way the organised crime in the US disappeared after the reversal of Prohibition?

Oh, wait…

They would just move to something else.

@OccasionalHope nobody is claiming legalising drugs would make crime disappear 🙄. Stop it with the false equivalence already. But also stop ignoring the evidence that harm reduction works. It's out there for all to see.

Well actually, a number of people have claimed exactly that. Including the post immediately before mine.

^I'm in Canada and I'm high right now but I think the best answer is legalization.
I don't understand why alcohol is fine, but weed is the devil.^

I'm high too and glad I live in a place that has legalized it.

There's gangs and crime relating to cocaine though.

That poor child and her mother, and family....

Well, now I'm outing myself, but fuck it.

And you're describing the Netherlands as if it's some kind of drugs armageddon with bodies floating in the canals daily - I'd like to see where you got that data from (I am Dutch so I can read Dutch language

Yep. Me too. A hysterical pearl-clutching statement. And utterly fabricated.
Yes. People do sometimes end up dead in the canal. Usually from too much alcohol.

Only a small percentage of those who die from the same in car crashes.

Absolutely this in spades

Ok - I'm a cop . I'll have to name change again soon - but I work in this area and I see first hand the pointlessness of drugs being illegal. It doesn't matter that they're illegal! Addicts are addicts . You cannot simply punish anyone out of addiction! It doesn't work . We have to find a different way of dealing with this . One that might work . Surely that's better ? I'm quite hardcore these days . I tell it as it is . Not
Popular maybe .