Page 6 | To believe that all drugs should be legalised?

TheWaryOchreRobin · 2024-12-08T18:13:56+00:00

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

EasternStandard · 08/12/2024 22:33

PerditaLaChien · 08/12/2024 20:27

No.

Plenty of people who would try drugs don't currently because illegality is a big deterrent. They're worried its not safe, they're worried about getting caught.

Make it safe and allowed and whats to stop people? Nothing.

People off their faces aren't useful. They do a crap job of looking after themselves, their kids and their property. A lot if controlled substances are addictive or lead to dependency. If you take more and more drugs you get where you aren't safe to drive, operate machinery and often can't do your job at all etc. People then turn to other antisocial behaviour like theft or prostitution to get money for more drugs. Its why so many people with drug problems end up homeless, or lose children they neglect, or wind up in jail. Its a massive cause of family and community breakdown.

As a society we don't need to have a load of useless druggies to support.

Well said, I agree

Maddy70 · 08/12/2024 22:35

Totally agree. Illegal drugs criminalised people and feeds the drug lords. Legalise it, regulateit tax it as in other countries.

Balloonhearts · 08/12/2024 22:36

Well I suppose if nothing else it will strip some of the stupidity out of the gene pool.

saltinesandcoffeecups · 08/12/2024 22:36

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.

Do you really think that gang bangers and drug dealers are going to say “whelp that’s me out of business… I wonder if Tesco is hiring “

Milkand2sugarsplease · 08/12/2024 23:18

Absolute recipe for disaster.

Working with addicts day in, day out, I know they would say decriminalisation would have made them worse.

Menopausalsourpuss · 08/12/2024 23:41

Yes agree a very bad idea. As a country we are already in a very bad way financially and have millions of healthy people not working without having to support even more drug users. The reason the war on drugs has failed is because it hasn't been tried - drug use has virtually been decriminalised which is why alot of cities now stink of skunk. The countries that are serious about drug use (Singapore, Japan etc) don't stink of skunk and have few drug problems.

user1471516498 · 09/12/2024 00:36

I would maybe be in favour of decriminalising cannabis possession, and possibly MDMA. (Although it weems like cannabis has been tacitly decriminalised anyway, so this is partially a moot point.). But heroin, cocaine, meth etc, that is a different story.

ARealitycheck · 09/12/2024 01:00

Milkand2sugarsplease · 08/12/2024 23:18

Absolute recipe for disaster.

Working with addicts day in, day out, I know they would say decriminalisation would have made them worse.

I personally wouldn't go as far as completely legalising all drugs like Class A. But I would create the ability to get them on prescription. The biggest issue as I'm sure you know is lack of mental health provision. Instead of money going to criminals and the resulting behaviour like crime to feed habits, use that criminal justice budget to increase mental health assistance.

IdylicDay · 09/12/2024 01:59

OP you are naive and out of your mind, have you got any idea what Crystal Meth does to someone? Or how teeny tiny a dose of Heroin it takes to OD? You really have no experience at all with drugs, do you? And its not about 'additives', pure Heroin is so easy to OD from.

araiwa · 09/12/2024 03:23

Are people actually saying that the only reason they haven't tried heroin is because it's illegal??

I haven't tried it but it's legal status is nothing to do with why.

marmaladeandpeanutbutter · 09/12/2024 06:12

They would not. You clearly know less than you think.

Theeyeballsinthesky · 09/12/2024 06:56

I know several people have mentioned the success in Portugal & been ignored so posting about them again as a reminder it is possible not to to be Portland

https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight

“In real terms, drug death rates in Portugal remain some of the lowest in the EU: 6 deaths per million among people aged 15-64, compared to the EU average of 23.7 per million (2019). They are practically incomparable to the 315 deaths per million aged 15-64 experienced in Scotland, which is over 50 times higher than the Portuguese rates.”

“In 2001, over 40% of the sentenced Portuguese prison population were held for drug offences, considerably above the European average, and 70% of reported crime was associated with drugs.13 While the European average has gradually risen over the past twenty years (from 14 to 18%), the proportion of people sentenced for drug offences in Portuguese prisons has fallen dramatically to 15.7% in 2019 — now below the European average.”

is it perfect? Of course not but it’s much much better than it was

Drug decriminalisation in Portugal: setting the record straight. | Transform

https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight

fairytailcat · 09/12/2024 07:15

SweetBobby · 08/12/2024 18:48

Why stop there? Let's legalise murder and theft too.

Exactly

fairytailcat · 09/12/2024 07:20

Ive seen people
Spin out of control who take recreational drugs on a regular basis

Alcohol is harmful but people can still function in life

I would hate to think my kid can buy heroin or coke or ecstasy in the shops

justanotherchangeofname · 09/12/2024 07:34

They would still be sold on the street, cheaper and mixed with god knows what. Heroin addicts aren't nipping to Morrisons for their wrap which is £100 a pop are they 🤷🏻‍♀️

RevolvingSpace · 09/12/2024 07:35

People want drugs legalised? Has anyone read the threads about people smoking? People saying if someone lights a fag within 20 meters they start coughing and ranting that it should be banned in ALL PUBLIC SPACES (including their neighbours gardens as it wafts into theirs). People should apparently ONLY be allowed to smoke in their own house. That's it. They also won't let their children be around or even held by smokers. Yet they want people to go into a corner shop and buy heroin or crystal meth? And maybe start doing that in the pub beer garden where apparently smokers should be banned from? Even vapers are the devil on those threads! 🤣

Yoyooo · 09/12/2024 07:38

Surely if a drug was legal, people would still crave a bigger high than what was legally available, and illegal drugs and gangs would just continue.

MushMonster · 09/12/2024 07:41

Well, let's look into the two examples you give. Alcohol and cigarettes are legal, taxed and you can buy them in the next corner. But they are the cause of massive society problems: alcoholism, cancer and other ill health issues.
The other drugs are WORST. So, let's not go there.
I think all drugs gangs members and lords should be in prison and all their assets should go to the health system of the countries they are selling in. Life sentence for the higher up guys sounds fair enough to me. But they have to catch and punish the guys at the top too, the Al Capone style ones.

DoreenonTill8 · 09/12/2024 07:53

saltinesandcoffeecups · 08/12/2024 22:36

Do you really think that gang bangers and drug dealers are going to say “whelp that’s me out of business… I wonder if Tesco is hiring “

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Well they could be the heroin/meth/crack experts for the shops that'll be selling it!

GreatOak · 09/12/2024 09:12

Perhaps it will surprise you to realise that heroin, cocaine etc are not completely illegal in the UK, rather they are controlled & regulated to a very large extent. Morphine is a prescribed drug for pain relief. Ketamine, the same. Codeine is available as an OTC drug however it comes with lots of warnings on the box that it's addictive, and shouldn't be taken for more than XX days.

Use of these drugs is controlled & regulated because they can be so dangerous. They have been classified based on their potential to do harm. Therefore to possess them illegally suggests your intention to harm yourself or another person. Do you know the drug-drug interactions between heroine and statins, for example? Can you predict that if you take both together you will not have an adverse reaction (some will, some won't)?

Like others I agree that alcohol can be just as damaging and were it suddenly introduced in today's society I've no doubt it would also become a Class drug, but that's not the case and we all know what happened with Prohibition in the US. It may become increasingly more regulated as time goes by, as with tobacco.

My younger self was of the opinion that "street drugs" should be made freely available, but the last 20 years working in healthcare has convinced me otherwise.

Gdmdnsnad · 09/12/2024 09:23

Does this extend to all chemicals? What if someone wants to take some hemlock?

Unicorntearsofgin · 09/12/2024 09:32

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.

Totally agree. If heroin was legal I would still have no desire to use it.

RevolvingSpace · 09/12/2024 09:48

Unicorntearsofgin · 09/12/2024 09:32

Totally agree. If heroin was legal I would still have no desire to use it.

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But surely one of the issues is there are people who WOULD just want to "try" it. Especially stupid (in a nice way) teenagers. I was one myself. I "tried" smoking at 16. I didn't actually really want to. But it was seen as cool. All my friends were trying it. So I did as well. I also "tried" alcohol at 17. I also wasn't fussed by that but gave it a go. Luckily I stayed unfussed by alcohol and can still take it or leave it. But it's much less addictive. Unfortunately smoking stuck. And i hated being addicted to it for over 10 fucking years. Imagine if what stupid young me tried at 18 was heroin??
My mum and school used to drill into me the risks of smoking (and drugs generally). But you know what? I still tried it. And over the years no amount of nasty pictures on fag packets or people dying of lung cancer was going to make me stop until I really wanted to. Thankfully I've been stopped for years now. But I imagine plenty of damage has been done. All because I was quite frankly a stupid teen who went along with the crowd.
(In my slightly older youth of early 20s I also tried weed, cocaine and mdma. Luckily none of those stuck either with me. But it did for plenty of people I knew. Some still do them now we're in our mid 40s and up)

Annabella92 · 09/12/2024 09:56

OldJohn · 08/12/2024 18:37

I studied drugs and alcohol as a post grad student and tobacco is the most dangerous with virtually zero positive benefits.

After graduating I worked helping people reduce or stop their use of illegal drugs, alcohol or tobacco

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Tobacco is the most dangerous? Can you expand on that please

username299 · 09/12/2024 10:02

Ridiculous idea. Weed is a known trigger for mental health problems. Making hard drugs easily available and normalised means more people will become addicts.

We have enough problems with alcohol abuse in this country, never mind adding crack cocaine to the mix.

How much is it going to cost society? Treating mental health problems and the physical problems created by a hard drug habit.

What about police cost and social services when parents are too smacked out to look after their children or their children get hold of their drugs? How much will it cost in missed work?