Something needs to be done about drugs in UK

[RegretMisery]

Drugs are killing healthy young people. How is it that a drug dealer is not tried as a murderer?

It's not limited to class. It could be your own son or daughter.

You know how many people in Singapore die from overdoses? Almost none, because drugs are actually illegal there.

people like you are scary ngl

We need a backbone in this country. There needs to be harsher consequences for dealers/users. Philippines had a good idea to zero tolerance for it and shot any dealers/people caught with any. That would help to stop it

However, if you look at heroin vs alcohol as a drug and the damage it causes, not just to the individual but wider reaching eg family/society, shockingly, alcohol is actually worse than any other drug for destroying family etc. thats legal 🤨

And very taxable.Britain isn't going to adopt the death penalty for drug offences.the war on drugs hasn't worked so a new approach is required.

50 years of this nonsense shows that the "new approach" is inevitably the old approach in a different font.

It should be tackled from a medical perspective for addicts and not criminal but that will never happen..gotta keep the rabid right wingers happy.

Its choice unless people are addicted from birth it is a choice

It really is more complex than that.

The policy is ridiculous. In the 1950s we had a system where morphine addicts could receive an injection and were registered. The UK had a very small problem. Other drugs like cocaine were also very small.

Since the early 70s we have got more and more moralistic about drug use and less practical in addressing how to manage it. The rates of addiction have increased and we don't even seriously help people with alcohol which is worse in terms of the damage to the person and society.

My suspicion is that a regulated and medicated heroin addict is more likely to be a productive member of society than an alcoholic but that appears unsayable in the UK.

Under the UKs system in the 50s the "drugs squad" for the entire Met was 2 officers.

This is very untrue. Having worked with many, many people who use drugs so many of them initially started out because they were vulnerable and being exploited. Either through abusive partners as a means of control, or through local dealers and gangs masquerading as 'friends' of very vulnerable lonely children. Many people start out using substances as children. It's not an informed consensual choice if you're a child. I know many people who were turned on to drugs by their parents. But what most people see are adults using. They don't really know the origins of the addiction. A lot of the vulnerable young people I work with don't have or use social media. They didn't sustain school. Where do you think they're getting the info from when they are socially isolated?

My own experience of drugs was due to the dance scene I was involved in and thus I ended up using for 21 yrs ,never burgled,robbed, hurt anyone apart from maybe myself at times not all drug takers are morally bankrupt.i remember myself and a friend were picking up and that person cut lines out..I said no way ,she said it's ok ,there was no way I was tooting Infront of a child it just wasn't right obviously.i knew people that went on the needle and that's when the chaos normally kicked in.
No one sets out to be an addict but I saw people make that leap from jacking speed then heroin.its not a straight forward issue that's for sure.

You can only try your best. There is virtually no help out there. There is also a culture of leaving it up to the person to help themselves, whereas the majority of addicts need someone to help them take the first steps, then support to keep going.

Have you lost someone very close to you OP?

I'll DM you

I agree. You get child benefit and all this other stuff and you still steal?

Weirdest causes of death include windows, beards, mosquitos, laughing..

Ban them all.

Or accept that with drugs (including caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes, fatty foods) come a level risk and personal responsibility.

Exactly.
As an experimental teen, I would never in a million years have bought cocaine off a street dealer who had mixed it with God knows what, whilst simultaneously worrying that I’d get caught and have a criminal record. But if I could have gone into a supermarket and bought safe legal cocaine for a night out, I’d probably have done it.

I suspect there are a few reasons why the drug problem in the UK in the 1950s was smaller than it is now.
Firstly there would have been a lot of unrecorded drug use. Data collection and storage didn’t compare with what he have now.
Also, travel and transport was limited, with far fewer people making journeys, so the process of importation would have been more difficult.
Once in the UK, transporting drugs to people would have been harder, as far fewer people had cars.
I doubt it had anything to do with giving morphine addicts injections. And anyway, we do have a methadone programme in this country, but you often hear of people selling their methadone and buying heroin instead.

The simple fact is that if you make something legal, more people will do it. Do we really want more heroin addicts wandering around? More drivers high on cocaine, or hallucinating after taking some acid?

@Onceuponatimeiwasaho please come and do my job for a week and listen to the absolutely horrific stories and backgrounds then you may learn to be a little bit less judgemental.

The simple fact is that if you make something legal, more people will do it.

Morris dancing is legal. There's hardly a fucking crush in the village square is there ?

The simple fact is that if you make something legal, more people will do it.

Most people don't want to be heroin addicts so most people don't do heroin. Some people are "fine" with becoming heroin addicts because of whatever life circumstance that led them to consider such poor choices.

We live at this moment with a total availability of drugs. Anyone that wants to, does. I could get drugs at midnight in my town easier than buy a beer.

It would be practically impossible to make drugs any more available than they are now, even if you put them in supermarkets. The only reason not to be able to get any is because you're not interested to find them.

@MumblesParty - obviously I disagree with you but in the 1950s and 1960s the UK had a progressive drugs policy compared to the United States which had gone for a strong prohibition model: we caved to that in the early 1970s and the rates of addiction have increased every year since.

We could manage addicts better in the community. It is the appetite to finger wag at that keeps them there imo.

I agree with the op but I can't be bothered with the thread because I know what the responses will be- the exact problem the op is trying to highlight.

This is utter bullshit. When I worked in treatment, around 1/2 or more of the people there were child abuse survivors. That's the people who were talking about it, so probably closer to 2/3 of the addicts were survivors. Add to that trauma, PTSD and pain, it's the whole place.

I've had an alcoholic drink. Have you? Because if you've had even one drink, you're lucky you aren't addicted. When was your first drink? Did a parent give you drugs and alcohol before you were 10? Because lots of people in treatment's parents did. The trauma-impacted people I worked with say that the first time they drank or used it was; "like coming home", "warm and safe for the first time", "like a hug", "I was happy and pain-free". Did you feel that? I didn't.

Judgement isn't the same as understanding and empathy. Try them, they make you more intelligent.

• HelloMiss Posters who think stealing steak/high value foods/alcohol to SELL ON. For drugs is 'food poverty'

And those stealing baby milk... usually to sell on. So naive.

people like you are scary ngl*

Scary how? I see it a lot.....it happens. The truth scares you?