Following on from the “Should Cannabis be legalised?” thread, what’s the view on Class A’s. Legalise, decriminalise; coke, heroin, crack, opium, etc.

Yup.

Definitely regulated though with a strong system of medical treatment/management.

Yep, all of them.

Yes, considering the currant system just ends up with cartels with more money than some country’s, scores of killings, the financing of terrorism and other organised crime, massive public expense, and crime by users becoming impossible to police something has to change,
Control it, tax it, and treat those that need help..
It’ll never happen though…

without a shadow of a doubt.

yes

considering what the drug war has done to mexico, and s america yes

and then theres opium in afgahnistan

we already give heroin addicts methadone for free, why not give them a controlled dose of heroin, and slowly taper?

what grum said

Absolutely.

The benefits of legalising seem to FAR outweigh any perceived drawbacks.

Just seems to be a step to far for the politicians, although I can understand why, many of the voting public get their knowledge from shitty newspapers who present a pretty unbalanced view. Saying “drugs should be legal” would lose them a huge percentage of voters. Look what happened to Nutt…

Control it, tax it, and treat those that need help

Isn’t that everyone on Class As? Surely heroin is just too destructive to give a green light?

Surely heroin is just too destructive to give a green light?

Heroin is one of the drugs which would benefit MOST from being properly controlled.

Being able to properly monitor and control addicts would help them immensely, rather than sticking them on Methadone (which solves nothing) and throwing them back out on to the streets. Nobody ever died from heroin withdrawal (compared to, for example booze or benzos), so proper treatment and managed dosage of clean heroin is surely far more preferable.

Most, if not all, crime ancillary to heroin which affects joe public is theft. Remove the need to steal and you remove the main effect of heroin on wider society.

When you all say legalise – are you suggesting some kind of system (perhaps Govn run) that sells it on the open market or just to de-criminalise it? I would be interested to know the impact on crime – obviously the organisations (illegal) that smuggle it will be reduced but if someone gets addicted to crack and can’t afford to buy it, surely they will still commit petty crimes to fund their habits? EDIT: Prescription of course, but that’s a different argument to legalisation across society.

Also, would we (as the UK), should we decide to legalise, be able to supply the drugs? Would we be allowed to grow / manufacture at home or would it be limited to authorised suppliers. Would we not need to retain regulation / law that relates to growing / manufacturing? If we didn’t, the UK would then become an exporter surely? We’d have cartels like Mexico / Columbia etc. Maybe an EU wide policy is needed?

I get the alcohol / tobacco argument and agree that health implications might not be any worse but I don’t think its as clear cut as most on here are suggesting.

Yes in an ideal world, but surely if you start taxing it, regulating, etc, that will create/fuel a black-market anyway, in the same way that the black-market for tobacco is thriving.

molgrips – Member

Isn’t that everyone on Class As? Surely heroin is just too destructive to give a green light?

I know a couple of guys who’ve been heroin users for at least 15 years, both highly succesful people… One says “I’m not an addict”, though I reckon he is, the other says he is but that it’s under control which I reckon is probably true. Most problems they’ve had since I’ve known them have been related to dodgy supply and legality.

Not going to say they’re typical, in fact I bet they’re pretty rare but it does happen.

Not going to say they’re typical, in fact I bet they’re pretty rare but it does happen.

I know (of) a few people who are the same, including one cop.

In fact, I remember spotting drug treatment programs being advertised in the back of a police magazine which was sent to a family member who was police. So can’t be that uncommon.

but surely if you start taxing it, regulating, etc, that will create/fuel a black-market anyway,

so you’ll have a small percentage* of users choosing to buy dodgy stuff of unknown origin as opposed to 100% of the users as we have now

*TBH I’ve no idea of the stats for percentage of smokers buying dodgy fags, but with a message of “don’t buy those, that shit will kill you” from the competing legitimate cigarette manufacturers I can see why some smokers may not take much heed.

Yep stop treating a social/psychological problem as if it is criminal issue.

No, alcohol and smoking cause enough issues as it is.

I agree with most of the comments so far, at the end of the day the current system is failing badly and drugs are widely available in various impure states. legalise and you will cut crime radically .A good comparison for me is to look at what happened in america when alchohol was made illegal in the thirties.ordinary people instantly began rubbing shoulders with gangsters, cheap and nasty booze was sold at exhorbitant prices ,oh and the cocktail was invented.

No, alcohol and smoking cause enough issues as it is.

Drac, how would changing the legal status of a drug cause more “issues”?

People who want to take drugs will, and those who don’t, won’t. The difference to society will be less drug related crime, addicts being properly monitored and controlled and government being able to support programs through tax income.

Most of the problems associated with heroin use stem from its illegality IMO. The cheapest most effective way to minimise harm to the users, and the rest of society, is to simply provide clean cheap heroin and syringes to those that use it.

People who want to take drugs will, and those who don’t, won’t.

More people will take them because they can easily and without breaking the law.

The difference to society will be less drug related crime, addicts being properly monitored and controlled and government being able to support programs through tax income.

We struggle to control alcohol which costs the NHS about £3bn a year so no I’m not convinced at all.

and legalisation would mean paramedics turning up to a comatose bloke and asking his friends “what’s he had?” wouldn’t be met with nervous looks, shifty eyes and “erm, nothing, honest”

<edit>his mates would be able to look at the packet and say 200mg of X, 50mg of Y….

Legalizing something that lets you get off your tits, then get on with your life the next day is one thing.

Legalizing something that you know is going to take over people’s lives is something else entirely, I reckon.

Apparently the uk raises over £14 billion from Alcohol taxation per year.

This is over 4 times the amount spent by the NHS and it would seem that all you puritans are actually having your healthcare subsidised by the boozers.

Crystal Meth anyone?

Legalisation doesn’t have to mean a free for all. Alcohol takes over many peoples lives that is legal. Whilst the impact of legalisation may well be worse when specific consequences are looked at in isolation, it the impact on society as a whole that should be looked at. Didn’t Portugal legalise some Class A drugs without any overall negative consequences?

More people will take them because they can easily and without breaking the law.

People won’t start taking heroin just because it’s legal. We need more and better education, not prohibition (which is clearly ineffective)

We struggle to control alcohol which costs the NHS about £3bn a year so no I’m not convinced at all.

And do you think the degree of control would be less or more if prohibition was brought in?

Legalizing something that lets you get off your tits, then get on with your life the next day is one thing.

Legalizing something that you know is going to take over people’s lives is something else entirely, I reckon.

“legalising” is just a label though. You’re not saying “it’s ok to take heroin”. The aim would be to take some semblance of control of the situation by providing proper care for addicts and not criminalising their addiction, whilst simultaneously reducing the black market and drug related crime.

Again, it comes back to education. At school I was told “drugs are bad and they are illegal”. Quite quickly, people become aware that they’re not all bad and they are easy to find, despite being illegal, so armed with bugger all education they become involved (to varying degrees) in drugs anyway.

EDUCATE people and at least arm them with basic knowledge so that they can make proper decisions and keep themselves safe if they do decide to take drugs(or find themselves on that path). Then provide proper treatment and support if things go bad (like we do with booze). booze is worse because it’s socially acceptable. Despite what the Daily Fail makes out, taking heroin will NEVER be socially acceptable and users will always be on the fringes of society.

Pretending that by making things illegal we can control them is laughable. It doesn’t work.

We struggle to control alcohol which costs the NHS about £3bn a year so no I’m not convinced at all.

We don’t struggle to control alcohol, we simply do nothing about it and let the NHS clean up the mess. How can you combat excessive and problem drinking yet allow the breweries and supermarkets to aggressively market it? It’s a simple policy decision, if the govt decided they wanted to do something about it, it would be very easy. As for illegal drugs, I’ve always been a staunch ‘legaliser’, however my one fear about legalisation is that we would see the same aggressive marketing of cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine etc were they ever to be legalised. It’s the marketing and advertising which needs to be controlled, not the actual drugs themselves.

and legalisation would mean paramedics turning up to a comatose bloke and asking his friends “what’s he had?” wouldn’t be met with nervous looks, shifty eyes and “erm, nothing, honest”

They tend to tell you now.

People won’t start taking heroin just because it’s legal

Of course they will.

And do you think the degree of control would be less or more if prohibition was brought in?

Probably minimal difference it’ll still fall into the hands of those that ‘shouldn’t’ have it.

so you’ll have a small percentage* of users choosing to buy dodgy stuff of unknown origin as opposed to 100% of the users as we have now

If you could could get 3 ‘Es’ for a tenner (off a mate) or one for £15 from the shop (asking you for i.d limiting the quantity you can buy, etc), I like you have no idea what folk would go for, but i’d hazzard a guess that most folk would plump for the 3 for a tenner and no questions asked deal.

I haven’t smoked for years but when I did smoke, I can tell you that the black-market was there and thriving, as in people selling tobacco/fags as their sole source of income and making a good living from it.

It could be different now but I doubt it.

People won’t start taking heroin just because it’s legal

Of course they will.

That’s not what happened in Portugal.

More people will take them because they can easily and without breaking the law.

There is absolutely zero evidence for that statement. Alcohol prohibition in America was an absolute disaster. The current system is failing so badly that surely it’s worth a try.

It is a reasonable point though that is doing it without other countries also doing it would present problems. We need worldwide legalisation!

Of course they will.

Evidence? Less people smoke weed in Holland than they do here.

That’s not what happened in Portugal.

They didn’t legalise drugs either.

Still reduced which was the point you tried to side step

People won’t start taking heroin just because it’s legal
Of course they will.

Are you one of them then?
Its not that simple though it shoudl also not be ignored
I am sure a small minority will but I would be surprised if it was more than 1 person per few hundred thousand tbh and we need to balance this risk against the positives that legalising would bring to current users.

FWIW heroin costs about as much to make as sugar – imagine the crime reduction if we gave them a Kilo of the shit for a £5

I dont think this problem/issue is removed by making it illegal and the result is the production and distribution to the criminals

It has to be about harm reduction and that is best achieved with regulation and control rather than what we do now

If you could could get 3 ‘Es’ for a tenner (off a mate) or one for £15 from the shop (asking you for i.d limiting the quantity you can buy, etc), I like you have no idea what folk would go for, but i’d hazzard a guess that most folk would plump for the 3 for a tenner and no questions asked deal.

Given the ridiculously poor quality of pills over the last decade I’d go for the £15 over the counter one every time! Legalising ecstasy is a no-brainer if you ask me. It’s pretty much the safest recreational drug out there, and has the added potential to change society in ways which would be highly beneficial. The only things standing in it’s way are the breweries and a govt who are still stuck in a mindset that people shouldn’t be having too much fun.

In 2001, Portugal became the first European country to abolish all criminal penalties for personal drug possession. In addition, drug users were to be targeted with therapy rather than prison sentences. Research commissioned by the Cato Institute and led by Glenn Greenwald found that in the five years after the start of decriminalisation, illegal drug use by teenagers had declined, the rate of HIV infections among drug users had dropped, deaths related to heroin and similar drugs had been cut by more than half, and the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction had doubled.[31] However, Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Maryland, College Park, suggests that the heroin usage rates and related deaths may have been due to the cyclical nature of drug epidemics, but conceded that “decriminalization in Portugal has met its central goal. Drug use did not rise.”[32]

So it’s decriminalisation not full legalisation but it’s still a long long way from the situation that we have in the UK right now.

Anyone proposing to make crack legal has never known someone who got addicted to it. Nasty nasty stuff.

Are you one of them then?

Nope only alcohol for me thanks.

Still reduced which was the point you tried to side step

Reduced what?

The decriminalisation route and referring those found for help does seems a better idea, I’m not convinced by the full legal thing with controlled distribution.

If you could could get 3 ‘Es’ for a tenner (off a mate) or one for £15 from the shop (asking you for i.d limiting the quantity you can buy, etc), I like you have no idea what folk would go for, but i’d hazzard a guess that most folk would plump for the 3 for a tenner and no questions asked deal.

youve never had a dud pill have you