Coffeeking - our current system simply does not work. Other countries that have gone to a less criminal more healthcare model have much less problems. Holland is the prime example but there are others.
Every year in the UK we have more junkies and the average age is lower - in Holland its the opposite.
What we need is pragmatic solutions based upon evidence not moral judgements based on tabloid journalism
Every year in the UK we have more junkies and the average age is lower - in Holland its the opposite.
But what drugs are you considering here. Holland still has as high cannabis use as the UK, so ignoring it doesn't seem to have helped much. With regards other drugs, there are still differences between hard and soft drugs over there too, with hard drugs still being considered illegal. And your suggestion that their drug use is falling seems to be incorrect from the figures, and several of their politicians believe the policy of ignoring drug use is failing and they should move to banning it.
Many border towns are seeing a massive influx of drug-seeking holiday makers and having problems due to that, and they are seen as a major drug traffiking gateway in europe. Sounds ideal to me 🙄
I have a few friends who work in the law enforcement side of things. What I hear from them is that drug addicts (mainly heroin & crack) repeatedly commit crime and often have absolutely appalling lives and backgrounds. The types of crimes they commit rarely lead to long sentences, and their lawyers will always aim to get the minimum sentence they can. The other side of this is that drug treatment programmes are generally only available to people serving prison sentences longer than 1 year. The end result is that it's almost impossible to break people's addictions.
On the other hand, there are a lot of people taking other drugs and there are people who are prescribed opiates for pain relief, but they're not stumbling around asking for 50p for the bus to see their nan...
Personally, I view the problem as being that drugs are a more attractive option than real life for a large slice of society. And I include alcohol in that. Until we produce a country where people are capable of looking after themselves and coping with life (and life is something that can be coped with - ie functional social services), we're going to have problems with drug addicts of one form or another.
Coffeeeking - junkies - heroin addicts. Look at the swiss experience as well.
They also have less issues with cannabis and other drugs than we have.
What do you suggest we do? Our current stance has clearly failed.
Look at the vast majority of countries TJ, there's no easy solution. There are heaps of solutions out there and none seem to be working, including the "we'll just ignore it" technique, and the "oh, poor junkies" technique. I don't have a suggestion, I'm not tasked with that job and it's not in my personal experience, however I see no pros to the legalisation other than additional tax revenue and fewer people in jail. I can't see it vastly reducing the number of non-authorised dealers, I can't see it reducing the number of people using and I can't see it changing much at all, other than giving people the big thumbs up and "have a nice day" due to having taken a different tack. Just because an existing policy is not currently functioning does not mean it is inherently flawed, or that there are better alternatives.
All the swiss experiment does is cater for existing junkies and not a) help them off or b) dissuade new people (fashions and peer pressure do that). All they've done is show that they can provide it as a medicinal solution. How many people would want to employ such people? Presumably they are not allowed to do any job requiring any level of responsibility or dexterity.
I just don't think the legalisation alternative is a sensible option, regardless of how bad the currnt system is.
But as tron said:
Personally, I view the problem as being that drugs are a more attractive option than real life for a large slice of society.
This is exactly the problem, and if you offer it freely and cheaply it will become an even more attractive, government sanctioned, alternative. And I don't see how we can hope to have a functional society with that level of disfunction being accepted as the norm.
Coffeeking - but that is exactly the swiss and dutch experience - by medicalising heroin addiction it makes it look uncool and therefore less folk do it. a simplification of a complex position but that is the dutch experience. You also get a lot less crime as you don't have junkies robbing folk to get the money to pay for a fix
Freely available cannabis means less folk use other drugs
Prohibition has clearly failed. a variety of differing approaches for different drugs has been proposed - you rubbish this despite it being what the evidence suggests is the best approach. If you rubbish the evidence based approaches then surely you should b e suggesting something else. You also need to distinguish between different drugs
Please note I am not suggesting a total legalisation.
I think there are two main aspects to the drugs 'problem'. One is the health and other effects of drugs on the users and the implications for society of widespread drug use. The other is the effect on society of the black market in both legal and illegal drugs.
On the first I don't think there is anything to fear from a situation where drugs are freely available to adults to use at their own discretion. Society already tolerates widespread use of legal drugs (alcohol, tobacco, legal highs etc) and for the most part hasn't descended into the dystopian vision of hell that some say it would. Obviously there are problems related to chaotic use and addiction, but there are already well established programmes within the health and social services to address these, and these could be massively expanded and improved with the tax revenue received from legal drug sales.
On the second, I think to reduce or eliminate the problems caused by the black market you need to look at full legalisation and availability. The black market will never be eliminated fully as the trade in bootlegged cigarettes and alcohol shows, but it can be vastly reduced. The problem with solutions like only allowing drugs like heroin to be available via prescription is that it will only create another black market. And just because something is freely available, it doesn't mean its production and supply could not be tightly regulated, licensed and controlled.
I heard its shite, palpitations and paranoia? I won't be partaking thanks :).
MrNutt - Member
I heard its shite, palpitations and paranoia? I won't be partaking thanks :).
depends how you are in yerself though,everyones different. ;0)
quite possibly, it could be great for me but I've no desire to try it anymore than I'd like to snort petrol 😀
