In light of the recent murders in Suffolk, isn't there now a case for providing vulnerable addicts with free drugs until they can be treated?

[bauble99]

The five murdered women were working as prostitutes. If newspaper reports are accurate, they were all heroin/crack cocaine users. By working to fund their habits they are at risk daily. Also, addicts who repeatedly shoplift and end up in prison must cost more to keep in prison than to treat with controlled doses of drugs in the community.

I think these people are beyond the 'Just Say No' campaigns reach. As addicts, they will always put themselves (and others, in many cases) at risk to get the funds to buy drugs.

Any thoughts?

I think if we can give them help to overcome their addiction then we should. Fortunately I have never been addicted to anything other than nictone and I know how bad that addiction can be.

yes - free drugs. Cuts out the dealers, in turn the people who get the big money and use it for guns and stuff. BUT, then its a route to free drugs. Hard to say really....

Some people don't want to come off drugs, it's all they have ever known. You are fighting a losing battle.
To them, drugs are their family, their friends, they are even more important than their own children, drugs mean more to them than their own lives even!

I can see your point, but i think one of the reasons a lot of people never move on to experimenting with really hard drugs is because they know it can destroy there lives.

I think in light of the recent murders there is now more of a case of getting vulnerable women off the streets and legalising brothels.

I don;t really think free drugs are the answer, but a having licensed and controlled brothels might go someway to protecting these women.

Prostitution will never go away, but while these girls are walking the sreets, they are at the mercy of dangerous and predatory nutters.

i personallelping people like this lock them in a room till they no longer want drugs then release them
im sorry but they chose to take the drugs n the first place and im sick of funding people with my hard earned wage going further into tax

But most of them choose drugs becuse they have such a shitty life

Here come the weirdos! Don't respond people.

sorry aload of my post went missing there bloody stupid keyboard

but why should they get free drugs
would you offer cancer suffers free fags

over weight people free cake

soooooooooo simple

this is going to degenerate fast

steveandlibby. It costs a lot more of your taxes to police, prosecute and imprison addicts for their crimes than it would to provide drugs to prevent them needing to commit the crimes in the first place.

It is indeed.

Ive got my hard hat on......

I know two people who used to be heroin users. I imagine that if they had been given free drugs they would now be dead.

and who is going to give these free drugs out and pay for them
cos if i had a choice i would not pay extra tax so some lazy good for nothing can sit at home all day getting off there nut on free drugs

if you want an answer people should stop being so soft in this day and age
people need to start turning things around not being so nice and caring
people who commit crime should go to prison and it should be prison 4 walls and a bed
that would stop alot of people selling as they would not want to risk it
but instead they get well fed get to use gyms and watch telly and earn a little bit of money on the side woooo what a deterrant

Do you think that they'd still get Heroin anyway, to 'top up' the free stuff?

i say legalise prostitution and the girls work in better safer conditions

Still huge problems in Ansterdam though

I agree, btw, that prostitution should be legalised and therefore made safer.

Oh FGS steveandlibby. Get real.

" Lock people in a room until they dont want drugs"

That speaks volumes in the fact that you have no understanding at all about people addicted to drugs.

No, I do not think that free drugs are the answer. I do think though that by having licenced brothels we would go a long way towards protecting these women from nutters like this man in Ipswich, and even from the pimps who get them into drugs in the first place and then exploit them. Giving out free drugs will not stop women from becoming prostitutes. There have been prostitutes for thousands of years, if they?re not doing it for drugs there would be another reason to do it.

Also the theory that if the drugs were supplied to the addicts it would get the dealers off the streets is totally wrong. There would still be the dealers to get the addicts into drugs in the first place. Plus how would you manage the giving out of free drugs? Make the addict go and take the drugs under supervision every ? however often it is that they need a hit? And how could you be sure they weren?t buying drugs on the side as well? The resources required to do this would be finominal, far greater IMO than policing the streets for dealers, which you?d still have to do anyway.

Plus what kind of message is this sending to peple? If you get into drugs and it becomes a problem then the state will provide them to you free? How would they decide who was a deserving addict and who wasn?t?

Drugs ruin peoples? lives. Not just because of the fact that people turn to crime to fund their habbits, but because of the changes in personality that many drugs cause. They ruin the lives not only of the addict, but of their family. I have no doubt that there are people on this very site who have had ex partners who were perhaps drug addicts and whose addictions had caused the breakup of their relationships, how do you think those people would feel knowing that their ex, the one who had let them down in every conceiveable way was now receiving their free hit from the state while they had to battle to cope as a single parent?

I don't think any of the things mentioned here should be legal. Not protitution, not drugs, not any of it. These things are illegal for a reason. I think we should be tougher on criminals, not softer.

And how can say on one hand this drug is bad and so it is illegal. And then say on the other hand, but here you go you can have some because it's okay for an adict.

SteveAndLibby - but of course at the moment your taxes etc are funding the fall-out from drug-use, and that's probably even more expensive.

People don't 'choose' to get addicted to heroine. Many peope genuinely use heroine 'recreationally' - others, who have no life they consider worth protecting, no self-esteem, no self-respect, have nothing t protect, so drugs allow them to blot out their misery. Also, dealers are skilled at bumping up thier trade - making users feel like part of a group, adding in addictive extras, setting up the whole ritual of getting drugs - it can all be compelling for people with nothing else.

Also, heroine users DO get expensive drugs free on the NHS. They get methadone, but it isn't very effective because it is even more addictive than heroine, but doesn't give the pleasurable heady rush effect of heroine, and people often sell it to buy heroine, thus creating yet another drug market for methadone buyers!

As far as I can see, getting off drugs needs a whole-life solution, with combined support for drug rehab, homlessness, and anti-prostitution measures.

I don't really know, but I suspect that de-criminalising use of drugs (not selling) and de-criminalising prostitution (not kerb-crawling or pimping) might make it easier for the women to get help.

why not whats wrong with locking people up
if we did this country would not be in the state its in
we as a nation are to soft and its because people come out with stupid ideas like
lets give out free drugs
why not lets give hoodies free holidyas when they are bad
lets give cinvicted killers new identies when they get released
lets not tell any one that a nonce has moved into the street

what we need in this day and age is to go back a few years
reintroduce national service
let the coppers clip the little shits that hang around outside shops scaring people around the ear

this sort of thing didnt happen as much years ago
its because we have to consider theor feelings now
who considers the feelings of the people at the other end or the line like the people that have to clean up after druggies

would you be so happy if one of your kids came in playing with a needle so druggie left on the pavement because they knew they could get me free ones

I will make the point I always make on these threads. If you legalise prostitution, what can you say if you're offered an interview at a brothel as part of a Government "back to work" scheme or you'll lose your JSA?

I think there's a lot to be said for criminalising men who pay for sex though. And stringing them up by their nutsacks, just to keep the loonies interested in this thread.