Surely the reason why no Government will ever legalise and tax drugs is that the profits from the manufacture and supply would go to a bunch of raghead farmers who do not wear business suits and do not play golf or belong to a gentlemen’s club?

Where do the profits from tobacco go? 🙄

Actually I could have just pointed out the the Government has already legalised and taxed drugs.

I’d like to see the “give-away” approach adopted here – not as a free for all but as a programme for addicts. I’d imagine it would undermine the market for heroin and result in a long term reduction in new addictions. Big_Scot_Nanny, was that the effect in Switzerland, and if so was the criminal activity of the drugs dealers displaced in to something even more harmful?

I’d like to see the “give-away” approach adopted here – not as a free for all but as a programme for addicts.

We already do that, only with dosage-controlled Methadone. Struggling to see what you’d gain from giving free Heroin instead of free Methadone to addicts. It’d thin the herd, perhaps.

I agree pretty much word for word with TJ

petty thefts and housebreaking is done by, in the majority of cases, drug addicts, there are loads of reports out there to back this up, as TJ has posted.

Prison really does means nothing to them.

Career criminals aren’t really into robbing houses (as a generalisation) they want money or easily sellable goods (ie cables, lead etc), not second hand TVs that sell for peanuts.

What would ‘free’ heroin (not legalised but as a treatment option) give that methodone doesn’t? Is the ‘high’ higher with the real stuff?

We have a long tradition of sending our convicts abroad <waves at psychle>

What is remarkable about the American and Australian convict offshoring projects are what a total f’ing disaster it was for Britain. It was fantastically expensive, did nothing to reduce the crime rate in the metropole and ignored the underlying causes of contemporary crime (the displacement of huge numbers of the rural poor following the decline of peasant production and the seizing of common land).

Huh, now you mention it…

Methadone is a poor replacement for heroin. The answer is to have GPs or specialist clinics prescribe heroin to registered addicts while simultaneously working with them on their social, psychological, employment and emotional problems.

There appears to be enough evidence above that burglary could be reduced by treating the underlying drugs problems, and reducing the “need” to steal to fund illegal habits.
At the other end of the scale, there is also evidence that stricter laws and punishment, such as cutting their hands off, is also effective against burglary.
The graph on p28 of this link to a European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control Statistics Report demonstrates the massive difference in burglary rates in the Middle East compared to Western Europe, North America, and Oceana.
http://www.heuni.fi/Satellite?blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobcol=urldata&SSURIapptype=BlobServer&SSURIcontainer=Default&SSURIsession=false&blobkey=id&blobheadervalue1=inline;%20filename=Hakapaino_final_07042010.pdf&SSURIsscontext=Satellite%20Server&blobwhere=1266335656647&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&ssbinary=true&blobheader=application/pdf

So why is burglary not being tackled? Who would lose out? Not the victims, not the police, and with the “treatment option” not the burglars.
Could this lack of political will be anything to do with the insurance industry in this country being worth £250+ Billion per year?

Some people get through their treatment programmes using methodone, many that I’ve met have not: the treatment plan fails, and the crime continues.

How about giving the junkies training in how to avoid capture when housebreaking. Our courts are full of rubbish criminals whilst our political chambers and media are full of the ones who avoid capture.

Smackheads don’t want methodone – they want smack! Methodone is also more addctive ( arguably) and more expensive.

Purely pragmatic – give ’em the smack and then they won’t annoy anyone. a junkie with his fix is just dull boring and a waste of space – no active harm.

loum – Got it in one. Insurance industry is a large and powerful lobbying group that probably has interests in making sure that drugs are not legalised and treatment is kept rubbish. Also its about H&S nowadays, if alcohol was “discovered” in the last decade, as well as the automobile, neither would be allowed due to Health & Safety.

elzorillo – Member

So lets get this straight..

I’m living in a society where there are a group of people who offer me two options.. they will take my stuff to feed their drug habit unless I pay for their drug habit through my taxes?

I’d prefer to pay for them to be locked up and PROPERLY supervised!

Throw away the key for all I care.

Its cheaper to just give em the smack

Teh reason why we don’t have a more pragmatic approach to this is that politician are terrified of the press on drug issues. See the treatment of Professor Nutt for example for daring to say that actually ecstasy and a cannabis don’t do much harm

” millions give to fund junkies lifestyles”

“take smack and get a free holiday”
etcetc

give ’em the smack

Some stuff which is nice and pure so they get a much bigger hit than normal ought to save money in the long run 😈

🙂

There doesn’t seem to be a cogent intelectual argument against de-criminalising all narcotics. The biggest losers would be the drug dealers themselves.

Its time we all got off our moral high horses and realised that the so-called war on drugs is already lost.

How much money would the goverment save if the prison population was reduced by 30%?

Giving away Methadone – you **** suckers, it has never worked, they just sell it for real Heroin or anything else and then come back for more.

Look at glasgow and see what happens in the Hospitals and Surgeries, its a complete load of shit and everyone involved is making excuses that it works to protect their jobs.

We should just kill them as they are a waste of a life.

We should just kill them as they are a waste of a life.

Try being a bit more subtle 😉

We take a soft touch with the **** and need to knock **** out of them when caught, forget the courts, just bust their legs and leave them in the streets. plus the sentencing for handling stolen goods needs to be made a lot tougher to stop people thinking its alright to buy stolen goods.

TJ – would not class housebreaking and burglary as petty theft, neither would the victims.

Methadone is a poor replacement for heroin.

How so?

Giving away Methadone – you **** suckers, it has never worked, they just sell it for real Heroin or anything else and then come back for more.

Never? Have you got any figures or reports to back that up?

(Incidentally, I’d like to make it clear that I’ve never sucked any ****’s, despite your allegations, though I’ve drunk XXXX if that helps?)

Look at glasgow and see what happens in the Hospitals and Surgeries,

Unfortunately I can’t; would you care to enlighten us as to what happens?

would not class housebreaking and burglary as petty theft, neither would the victims.

Absolutely. You feel violated, and the scars run deep.

How so?

it’s not heroin.

i’m not a heroin addict, but a friend of mine is a psychologist working with addicts.

he tried explaining it to me: it only numbs the cravings, it doesn’t satisfy them. A heroin addict on methadone is still addicted to heroin.

at least, that’s how i understood it.

i say we try giving heroin to addicts, we already give them drug A (methadone), why not give them drug B (heroin)? it would be cheaper than throwing away all those keys (such a waste of good keys), it could stop anyone selling it, so may even stop people getting addicted in the first place.

Cougar – never been violated in anyway and what scars I have are self inflicted.
If I was lucky enough to come across someone trying to or burgaling my property it would be me up in court to give reason to my actions!

Knowing my luck the criminal justice system would hang me out to dry. After all the victims have f*ck all human rights.

Knowing my luck the criminal justice system would hang me out to dry. After all the victims have f*ck all human rights.

I imagine that only the victims who have an intention of doing damage will lose their human rights. 😕

Capital punishment is the only solution, the problem we have is the do gooders fighting to say its not fair.

Glasgow is one of the worst places in Europe for Heroin addiction and the clinics there are trying to deal with it by handing out Methadone, but its not worked, the addicts come in get what they can, the doctors are not bothered anymore and just hand out whatever they think is ok to get rid of them.
They then sell it and are back within a day asking for more making excuses that they lost it etc and the doctors cant be arsed so they give them whatever to get rid of them.

This I got first hand as partner was a doctor who worked there basically left as she was disgusted and despite protestations, the NHS isnt interested in dealing with it – but then why should they.

Bad batch would finish them!

elzorillo – Member

So lets get this straight..

I’m living in a society where there are a group of people who offer me two options.. they will take my stuff to feed their drug habit unless I pay for their drug habit through my taxes?

I’d prefer to pay for them to be locked up and PROPERLY supervised!

Throw away the key for all I care.

Unfortunatley this complaint is logically flawed and falls down due the actual facts.

The cost of insurance, cops, drug tratment, drug crime detection, customs, armed forces (in afghan remember the war on drugs?) far outweigh what it would cost to produce and distribute a cheap drug freely to all the idiots who want it. And we would solve the problems in afghanistan in minutes. Here have loads of money, grow poppies for us but don’t let the taliban or Al Qaeda in.

I’m with toys19 and TJ on this, where countries have legalized/de criminalised there have been positive reductions in crime (Portugal / Switzerland and small scale experiments here) We have been fighting the “war on drugs” for 30-40 years and got nowhere, isn’t it time to try something different? It would probaby reduce crime, the prison population and possibly even the number of addicts. The long term benefits to society could be immeasurable (Taliban finances through opium production affected, safer streets, BILLIONS of ££’s of our taxes saved and put to better use improving society) Why not try it??

I don’t really get it. I reckon I could keep ten cons chained up in my cellar for about £1000 a year. Why does it cost £30,000 a person?

I would feed them on bread/water/potatoes and give them a vit pill a day to keep them from getting scurvy. Three strikes for a crime like burglary and it’s a 20 year sentence. They could come up from the cellar twice a day to break rocks to be used for road building manually or do some other pointless task. Jobs a good un.

Thats one thing that our American friends know about; nasty jails.

Our problem in society is that we’re obsessed with costs. Even if you don’t like my idea for victorian chokey, then maybe £30,000 is a good price to keep a cretin off the streets. Worth every penny in all honesty. Lock-em up and throw away the key.

Even if you’re goint to stick to this lunatic cost/benefit analysis that we’re obssed with, it probably takes 3/4 police officers, a probation officer, a few judges, a barrister for a few hours and tonnes of wasted admin hours for every loony-smackead out of jail who carrys on commiting petty crimes (not to mention the emotional trauma they cause).

to be fair if we compare,sheer volume of police time, life cycle of drug use, criminal damage, long term chronic health issues, cost to the NHS and antisocial behaviour we may as well leave the odd IV drug user out of it and kill/jail/transport all the tossers who enjoy a beer.

Thats one thing that our American friends know about; nasty jails.

and obviously their crime rates are low, and re-offending practically non-existant?

oh…

and obviously their crime rates are low, and re-offending practically non-existant?

Are you trying to say that the ones they have killed have re-offended? 😯

Are you trying to say that the ones they have killed have re-offended?

to be fair a lot of them were not guilty in the first place 😯

What is the economic advantage of reducing property crime in a consumerist economy?
The problem is not “how” to reduce burglary, its “why”?
Nacho hits the nail on the head

The long term benefits to society could be immeasurable

But they would not be long term benefits to the economy, and that is more important to our politicians.

Tazzy – its fairly comparable in effects = drunks thump people, junkie nick stereos IME. In terms of reducing burglaries which is where this came from giving junkies smack would stop a huge amount

The harm index thingy is interesting on this. Its as near as we get to objective data

to be fair a lot of them were not guilty in the first place

We appear to have stumbled across a system that works, kill ’em before they offend therefore removing any possibility of re-offending. 😀

How do you possibly rehabilitate such prolific offenders into society?

Bin them.

No, really. It’s nearly impossible to get people to stop using whatever drug it is they need to fund. They’ll only stop when they OD.