Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To believe that all drugs should be legalised?

183 replies

TheWaryOchreRobin · 08/12/2024 18:13

If alcohol and cigarettes are legal, why not regulate and tax everything else instead of letting criminal gangs profit?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
colesr · 08/12/2024 20:37

@MurielSpriggs

Heroin kills many people.

Right, so how does legalising it make it safe?

User37482 · 08/12/2024 20:37

I’m related to a drug addict. I don’t think it would be a good idea. I just think you’ll have more people walking around with drug induced psychosis. I dabbled and have never been addicted but it’s fucking devastating when people do get addicted.

MurielSpriggs · 08/12/2024 20:38

colesr · 08/12/2024 20:37

@MurielSpriggs

Heroin kills many people.

Right, so how does legalising it make it safe?

This is tiresome and circular! Try ChatGPT.

DoreenonTill8 · 08/12/2024 20:38

CaptainBeanThief · 08/12/2024 20:20

As did I,
However people decided to jump on my first post to the OP banging on about people that aren't even addicts being PRESCRIBED it.
But why would it be prescribed if someone wasnt an addict?
Now if shops were selling it, then yes people could just walk in and buy it however people were just jumping on me assuming things I wasn't even saying

Why should it be prescribed at all? Or methadone?

colesr · 08/12/2024 20:38

@MurielSpriggs

This is tiresome and circular! Try ChatGPT.

I'm not the one struggling to answer.

User135644 · 08/12/2024 20:39

If cannabis had been legalised years ago then it wouldn't be so pungent as it is now.

Tax, legalise and regulate - use would go down rather than up and crime would plummet, as much as the crime rate is related to the drug trade. It's just made organised crime super rich. War on drugs an utter disaster.

User135644 · 08/12/2024 20:41

Mittens67 · 08/12/2024 18:40

I would argue the other way if I could. Criminalise fags and booze. Never happen of course but I think we need fewer substances which damage health and make many people behave dangerously not more.

Criminalise alcohol? Like the Americans did 100 years ago.

Organised crime has never looked back.

saltinesandcoffeecups · 08/12/2024 20:42

MurielSpriggs · 08/12/2024 20:28

In the interests of adding a bit a quantitative evidence into the discussion, here's a report on some research from 2010 by a very highly qualified team led by David Nutt of Imperial College evaluating the harm done to the user and to society of a range of drugs including alcohol and tobacco.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/94042/alcohol-most-harmful-drug-based-multicriteria/

But umm not to add context to this but what would it look like if everything on that list was legal and as available as alcohol… there is a 17 pt difference between alcohol and heroin so it’s not hard imagine what it would like with a legal and available heroin.

In other words… 48% of adults in the UK use alcohol vs. 3.3% of users taking class As

CaptainBeanThief · 08/12/2024 20:45

@DoreenonTill8
Did you even read my first post or did you pick out bits you felt you could rip apart I am against legalising drugs. End of.

DoreenonTill8 · 08/12/2024 20:45

CaptainBeanThief · 08/12/2024 20:08

Yeah but why would someone who isn't addicted to heroin BE PRESCRIBED heroin?
The NHS isn't just going to hand devastatingly life ruining drugs to people? Lol you clearly don't have a clue.

Why on earth are you then advocating for, in your own words....devastatingly life ruining drugs to be able to buy as easily as a bottle of Pinot Grigio?

CaptainBeanThief · 08/12/2024 20:47

@DoreenonTill8
You are really fucking annoying me
I never advocated for it to be legalised
Please refer to my first post, you can clearly see I said NO I would not like it to be legalised, so please stop quoting me

DoreenonTill8 · 08/12/2024 20:47

I apologise then @CaptainBeanThief. I thought you were FOR!

CaptainBeanThief · 08/12/2024 20:48

@DoreenonTill8
In case you are struggling to find it I have copied it for you
NO. Definitely not. Have you any close family OR been an addict yourself?
I was deeply deeply addicted to an assortment of drugs inc crack in the end, it doesn't matter if they are legal - they still ruin lives they almost ruined MY life and MY families life.

YES I have ALL my teeth and NO I don't look like a drug user
It was the most single hardest thing coming off drugs legalising them will do nothing, people can still OD, there will still be dealers etc.

TheHateIsNotGood · 08/12/2024 20:50

Legalize Cannabis and keep Cocaine illegal would be good start. Then take it from there. We've not got the opiate/oxy crisis that the US poor have endured but I'd say keep 'heroin' illegal for now and maintain the ability of legal prescriptions for pain, etc and increase the opiate addiction drug services that can prescribe the equally hideous methadone substitute for the addicted, not least to reduce drug-related crime.

kaos2 · 08/12/2024 20:52

Only if any related illness were not treated for free .. the nhs is on its knees as it is let alone a load of idiots nearly killing themselves taking drugs !

saltinesandcoffeecups · 08/12/2024 20:53

And FTR… I really don’t care about legalization of pot… if you’re an otherwise productive member of society and want to smoke in the evenings or eat your edibles… have at it. Just don’t whine that you can’t get a job that requires a drug test.

I really have yet to see a functioning heroin addict long term. It seems like one of those things that falls of the rails sooner or later.

I really don’t want to pay the care and upkeep of drug addicts… you think your ambulance wait times are bad now… just wait for them to be responding with Narcan for the junkie that plans their high in a public place so they can be brought back to life for the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th time.

lineylines · 08/12/2024 20:53

Yes, 100% they should be legal. Precicely because they are dangerous, we shouldn't be handing over the contol of drugs to criminal gangs. It makes no sense to do that.

But legal doesn't mean sold freely.

I think they should be controlled.

I believe it should be legal to grow your own weed, so then people would know exactly what they were smoking, it wouldn't be laced with spice etc like it sometimes is nowadays. And perhaps the trend for ever more powerful weed would stop if people could just grow their own at home.

Drugs like LSD and MDMA should be available from the chemist. They're relatively harmless compared to booze, and pretty good for society IMO as they make people feel more creative, empathetic and onnected with each other.

Seriously addictive drugs like heroin and cocaine should only be available on prescription to addicts, who should be offered decent treatment options for coming off them. (Not methodone which is actually easier to OD on than heroin, for example).

Deesmond · 08/12/2024 20:56

Hunglikeapolevaulter · 08/12/2024 19:21

Lovely, we can turn our cities into Portland, Oregon. They're not quite fucked enough.

Yes, I visited Portland recently, and it was absolutely shocking. I can’t begin to describe the people tripping out, lying on the streets. We have NOTHING like this in the uk.

RoamingGnome · 08/12/2024 20:57

Nope terrible idea. Drug use virtually is decriminalised in Scotland - personal use possession is barely prosecuted- and the death rate is horrific. Street drugs are cheap and widely available, including in prison. Making them more widely available will not help. Even if they were regulated and sold in a controlled fashion the criminals will still try and undercut on price and sell knock off compounds either cut with any old rubbish or laced with something stronger.

BananaSquiggle · 08/12/2024 21:43

colesr · 08/12/2024 20:22

@MurielSpriggs

It would be far less likely to be contaminated with fentanyl for one thing.

Ok, how would non contaminated with fentanyl heroin be safe if legalised?

Not safe, but safer. If heroin was ever decriminalised in the UK, it’d be very unlikely to be a free-for-all. It’d likely revolve around designated safe consumption rooms or heroin-assisted treatment. This massively reduces risk of overdose death, as you’re not alone, dose is controlled, needles clean etc.

But seriously, the contamination alone is a huge factor.

Whammyammy · 08/12/2024 21:55

Yes. We could all do crystal meth together down the local pub. How quaint

Anotherparkingthread · 08/12/2024 22:02

I think even if not legalisation then at least decriminalisation is certainly worth investigating.

For those who think that the only preventing people taking drugs is the law, don't understand drugs. You, I or anybody else could go out and buy any drug we wanted if we wanted it badly enough. The reason most people don't is because they don't want to be addicted, they don't want to be drug users, they don't want that lifestyle. They aren't pilara of society kept on the straight and narrow by fear of the law. Equally most drug use isn't prosecuted because doing so is expensive, pointless and wastes resources which could be out towards tackling violent crime. Addictions aren't choices, by the time somebody addicted, particularly to drugs like crack and heroin, the choice to steal and desperation for the next fix isn't in their control anymore. Because they have so little faculty over that choice, trivialities like the law won't stop them doing anything to attain the next fix. And so are absolutely useless in preventing drug use.

If you look at more progressve countries with better programmes and facilities for drug users, such as a bunch of smthr scandi countries we see that most people want to get clean. In these countries the focus being on wellness and recovery, not punishment, this helps users access services without stigma or risk of prosecution.

For less potent drugs like marijuana, decriminalisation and legalisation has proven greatly effective in many countries and has shown to have the ability to generate enormous tax revenue, legalisation also helps to defund organised crime. Legalised drugs are also safer and less likely to contain dangerous chemicals, harder drugs or things like chemical contamination and pesticides.

The war in drugs is a joke, it's already been lost lol.

marmaladeandpeanutbutter · 08/12/2024 22:12

I agree. Cut the legs off the gangs and the illegal drug business by doing this. It'll prevent a great deal of violence and save on prisons. But it has to be self funding and not cost the public.

EasternStandard · 08/12/2024 22:25

Onesailwait · 08/12/2024 19:00

Yep, decriminalization is working out great in BC!. My kids can walk downtown and see folks smoking meth & crack In full view of the police.

No thanks from me too