Given that the governemt could actually stop us doing anything they felt like stopping us doing, why do they cntinue to allow sale and consumption of a dangerous and addictive drug?

[Coldtits]

Is it because allowing smoking is cheaper than paying for pensions?

also if drugs like heroin were available in tesco more people would become addicted, generally heroin addicts are not great at holding down steady jobs so there would be more people stealing/mugging ect to pay for their heroin

cigarette tax is very high, granted some people do smuggle them in but MOST people pay the tax. I can't imagine that the dealers, who get drugs from the bigger dealers who get them from the smugglers who buy off the farmers are really in a position to get the best prices for the consumer compared to a legal organisation? I reckon you could do it, in Holland people don't buy green illegally do they? Much less hassle to go to the shop.

Yes, indeed, if they were legal, people would only buy them from licensed places and not from shady characters in dark alleys.

Ever been to Amsterdam? I can assure you there are no marijuana dealers at all.

wonderstuff its not the legal/ilegal point of your idea that i am disagreeing with. you said make it all legal and prohibitively expensive. if you make shops charge £20 for a packet of fags someone will find a way to smuggle them in and sell them for £10. in holland they have legalised certain drugs but havenot made them prohibitevely expensive.

I don't think Tesco would be the outlet of choice tbh and obviously when I rule the world drugs will be available from licenced premises, but people don't avoid shooting heroin because its illegal, they don't do it because it has awful side effects and they aren't that desperate. It is already widely available. In the US they thought that prohibition would lower crime, it had the opposite effect.

Every budget they raise the tax on fags, people still buy them.

but they raise it by pennies, not pounds and tbh there is already a huge trade in cigarettes smuggled in and sold ilegally, that would just get worse.

Marla I don't think the dealers would all go out and become upstanding members of society no, but organised crime did decrease dramatically when alcohol was legalised in the US. I think the dealers would just be poorer

Silly old you

OK Nancy maybe initially the best plan would be to undercut the dealers, they did this with pirate videos in Russia when it became a huge problem, then over time, when the dealers were all out of business gradually increase taxes the way we do with fags and petrol

Because there would be riots on the streets if fags were banned. It'd be moider.

No organised crime definitely dropped. It definitely went up during prohibition and dropped afterwards. Don't think alcohol consumption was affected at all though.

Do you know what "organized crime" means?

Thats what the Americans thought about beer, if it wasn't freely available society would benefit, but they were wrong. I think we should trust adults to make informed decisions myself.

Is that directed at me Cote?

I'm sure it's true that some of the drop in crime was because they were not arresting people for drinking. Still, the organised criminals were thrown out of business which would have stopped a lot of related crime too. As Wonderstuff says legalising all drugs and selling them (through government owned outlets) would wreck the drug dealers organisations.

I'm cautiously in favour of letting people make up their own minds if they want to take a drug. If I were in charge the penalties for endangering lives because of drug use would be very severe to balance that. So zero tolerance for driving or being in charge of a child etc. Someone wants to get out of their head they have to find a safe place to do it.

For what it's worth, I think the government will eventually ban fags. They just need to find another way of financing the NHS first.

Would solve the prison over crowding issue if we stopped locking up smack addicts as well surely? I agree onager, when I rule the world there will be stiff penalties for drug/drink driving and endangering children.

Do you think that if fags were illegal anyone would bother starting? I know it undermines my whole argument but as drugs go fags are pretty rubbish no? Just made me feel sick when I tried anyway.

heroin addicts are not usually in prison for drug offences, they are more likely to be arrested for crimes like shoplifting, mugging and breaking into houses. this was my point above, whether the drugs are legal or not the people that are addicted would still have to fund their habit, so these crimes would not decrease.

Well because its a vote loser isn't it?

I don't know what percentage of the adult population still smokes. Guess at 20 to 25%?

No political party is going to risk losing a quarter of their voters. Surely.

No Wonderstuff, it was directed at MarlaSinger. Because she answers "organized crime rates dropped" with "you can cause any crime rates to drop if you stop something being a crime".

She doesn't seem to realize that "organized crime" is somewhat different than "crime".

I heard a good argument for registering "addicts£ (like drug users) so they could only get fags on prescription from the chemist. If not on general sale it would cut new smokers starting?

Although, maybe everyone would just bring back loads from abroad?