Recreational drugs policy

As they are licensed and inspected I do not think that can be true.  Is it that its the same folk growing but they have moved into the legal market?

Back in the late 90’s/early 2000’s there was a web forum dedicated to cannabis growing/production called Overgrow that proved so popular that it was shut down/raided by the Canadian government around 2005, I was on it a lot in the early days and occasionally worked as a moderator/tech and nutritional advice for the hydroponics forum and out of this came an explosion in home growers.

A mate from Ayrshire moved over to BC in 2004 to work on an illegal grow and now has a few large legal grows supplying the commercial market, the amounts of money generated from the production/sale of what is a weed is quite staggering.

If Labour wanted to generate a few billion then legalise it in this country, follow what has worked in other countries and do it now.

I guess at a level above the Scottish govt, someone decided that it would require too much resources to combat generation upon generation of poverty. So they hit reset, handed out ‘hot-shots’, and hived out any kids to better-heeled foster parents.

? I’m not saying you are wrong that fixing multigenerational poverty is a huge challenge and people at a loss to do anything other than intervene on a case by case basis might well feel it’s too hard to solve so do little – but that’s not quite what ethnic cleansing is about and suggesting it is does a disservice to all the victims of genocide globally as well as making it too easy for government to shrug off the legitimate complaint of institutionalised poverty as ridiculous exaggerations.

As for any perceived population, encroaching  onto the highland estates.

drugs are problem in every small highland town, indeed they might be more of a problem there than in the big cities.  I’m sure that most highland estates would actually welcome working age population growth now.

The theory is that the USA feared an increase in the African population. Was AIDS engineered to achieve population control?

ah, sorry I didn’t realise we were dealing with conspiracy nonsense.

the idea of a state deciding what I am allowed to consume/take is utterly absurd and throughout my life I have ignored the law

How about if the state needs to pick up the pieces / cover the costs?  There is a point at which your freedom to do as you wish impinges on other folks freedoms.  Speed limits are an obvious place where this sort of principle is used.

I am particularly thinking of the human wrecks I have seen in the big cities worldwide.  Their healthcare costs must be huge.

How about if the state needs to pick up the pieces / cover the costs?  There is a point at which your freedom to do as you wish impinges on other folks freedoms.  Speed limits are an obvious place where this sort of principle is used.

Where did you pluck the speed limit simile from? – it doesn’t belong nor make sense in this discussion,  I was commenting on the understanding we were talking about drug regulation and illegality, personal drug use does not impinge on others safety (with notable exceptions).

Living in a small fishing community here in kirkcudbright i’ve lost 6 mates, and could name another 3 from drug overdoses, could legal heroin on prescription have saved them?, in a few cases, yes for sure.

I think we’ll see decriminalisation at some point in the U.K. Not smoked weed for ages but if I could pop to the shop for an edible on a Friday night to chill out I might once in a while.

Amazes me how many younger folk are into Coke and I see it everywhere in my town. Obvious trips to the toilet etc. Dealers mass marketing via WhatsApp etc. Easier than ordering a pizza.

OK maybe a poor simile – its where restrictions are put on personal freedom for the good of all.  absolute personal freedom does not really exist.  I’m with you on prescription heroin.  I thought you were advocating full legalization of everything.

personal drug use does not impinge on others safety (with notable exceptions).

Thats the point – about where we draw the line.  I think cocaine in combination with alcohol is responsible for a  lot of violence.  I see no harm reduction argument for liberalising laws on it, I see good reason to keep it illegal  I think in the case of cocaine useage of it does impinge on others with the possibility of violence

Was it not the case that marijuana was criminalised in the US because it was feared that post-slavery black people using it might become rebellious? I believe Queen Victoria consumed dope to aid her in childbirth, fair oot! Drug laws are all tied up with politics, business, the DM, hypocrisy. Blimey just think of all the deadly crap that is fast food, sugar, alcohol and fizzy pop.  The legal availability of graded, light to heavy duty weed could keep people away from the more dangerous stuff. MJ is not a gateway drug any more than mother’s milk is.

Was it not the case that marijuana was criminalised in the US because it was feared that post-slavery black people using it might become rebellious?

Yes .  J Edgar Hoover the head of the FBI  and Harry J. Anslinger  in the 30s  completely racist.  As much against Mexicans and Black fork I believe but different accounts vary

It was more about the cotton industry… Hemp fibers are cheaper and easier to grow and process than cotton.

The cotton lords didn’t like that for obvious reasons.

MJ was the gateway to smoking bloody cigarettes in my case. I’d made it all the way to 19 without smoking, it took me 10 years to stop!

In the end I quit both and my life miraculously improved.

TJ after I wrote that it occurred to me it came from ‘Whose Law, What Order’ by Chambliss and Mankoff. Without recreational drugs we may well have missed out on the lakeland poets, Sigmund Freud, William Burroughs, Ernest Hemingway, Hockney, but with legalisation we may have saved the lives of Hendrix, Joplin, Jones, etc etc.

Legalising weed solves the smoking side of it as good reliable edibles are suddenly an easy option. I’m not sure whether impatience would mean a rise in smoking it or not, though

Pretty hardcore ritualistic stuff, but as it’s an endangered species, it’s incumbent for us to legally cultivate it here in the uk.

Consumption is another matter:

This is why we need a rational drugs policy based around harm reduction.  many of these synthetics are pretty nasty

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/25/one-in-six-vapes-confiscated-at-english-schools-spiked-with-zombie-drug

That is grim reading. I got a load of vape awareness stuff from my daughter’s high school, I thought they were overreacting tbh. But those are worryingly high percentages to be full of shite.

but with legalisation we may have saved the lives of Hendrix

Jimi died as a result of taking sleeping pills and mixing them with alcohol, vomiting in his sleep and choking to death. Not alone in making that mistake.

Worth purchasing a kindle for this alone:

The Emperor Wears No Clothes: A History of Cannabis/Hemp/Marijuana https://amzn.eu/d/0hPCvgzE

Hemp was too much of a rival to the emerging petrochemical fibres (rayon, nylon).

though, imho it was more about centralising revenue streams, to be channeled into the arms industry, Israel, etc).

I’ve not really read most of this to be honest and I’m not sure if my point here is even relevant but I’d just like to say that the hard drug scene at this moment at least in Britain is awash with synthetic drugs called nitazines. These are found in most pill or powdered substances and are bad news.

According to my wife who works for Milton Keynes addiction recovery services the staff are now seeing this synthetic drug in pretty much everything sold on the streets.. even in cannabis!

Apparently there is pretty much NO heroin on the streets right now and it’s been substituted for this synthetic stuff which is in many cases way stronger than heroin and the users often overdose as they have no way to know what amount is safe. The Taliban have almost stopped all heroin production which is what Britain was being supplied with so that’s the reason for the disappearance of traditional brown heroin.  Like I said I’m not sure if this is valid to the initial points raised but it certainly puts a slightly different stance on things if you don’t even know what drugs you are even being sold?

Its part of the harm reduction argument.  NO need for nasty synthetics if punters have access to decent clean known stuff.

That might apply to drugs like weed or LSD but it currently appears that pill/powder stuff is being cut with this stuff before it gets to our shores so any legalised or regulated agency may not be able to obtain “clean gear” so users will still be forced to use what’s going around.

Anyone heard or read about Theresa May’s husband will no doubt be aware of his export empire hidden under a sugar company.

Also there’s way too many factors involved surrounding use.

I am debating whether to book a consultation for medicinal use.

Apparently, over in Canberra they have decriminilized cocaine as an experiment. They didn’t want to appear eliteist so they have included Ice and heroin too.

They have also done something positive over there regarding the use of physchodelics for use with pshychtherapy.

Go Oz, leading the way.

I watched a video on Vice news about a German weed dealer who said that he needed to get out of the business as all the weed he was selling was cheap Albanian crap that was sprayed with synthetics. The demand by all accounts was very ‘high’ for the stuff.

Nasty Fentanyl shite sprayed worldwide

So a friend told me cough cough

I though that heroin is the synthetic version of opium?

Afaik, the whole “queen Victoria smoking cannabis to ease her menstrual cramps” turned out to be an urban myth.

Pre-petrochemical era, most medicines contained marijuana (coca-cola and tinctures of opium, too!).

Opiates, such as morphine and codeine, are natural opioids found in the opium poppy. Synthetic opioids, such as methadone, are chemically made. Heroin is a semi-synthetic opioid: it is made from morphine that has been chemically processed.

Best reference is Terence McKenna’s ‘Food of the Gods’.

Puts all these drugs into their historical context.

for me, only offering alcohol as the only legal recreational drug, discriminates against men and the disabled,

for men, all that alcohol does is make their testes shrink, placing them on a continuum of misogyny somewhere between Andy Capp and Jack the Kipper. Give them a car and they think they’re Ted Bundy.

how does alcohol discriminate agains the disabled?

it makes it quite difficult to navigate a slippery toilet, even with a walking stick.

the only work-around is to replace the wheelchair with a commode. Davros-style?

I though that heroin is the synthetic version of opium?

Not really… to my basic knowledge, heroin is refined opium.

If you are in hospital and need strong pain killers, you might be given Codeine or Morphine depending on the severity of the pain, but they are all what is called ‘opioids’, and are all basically ‘Heroin’.

Now we have synthetics such as Fentanyl which can be hundreds of times stronger.

It makes a very strong argument for regulated ‘safe’ drugs for people with addiction isssues.

I know, as I lost my younger brother to hard drugs…he died of an accidental overdose in a squalid flat in Bradford, the toxicology report mentioned morphine, cocaine, and serveral different types of temazepam/diazepam type stuff.

Incredible the number of people on cycling forum clued up about recreational drugs.

Is there a connection ?

I blame Bradley Wiggins.  😉

The same detrimental effect on men can be caused by cocaine and/ or solvents.

It’s not the ‘drugs’ we consumed in this lifetime, but the quite staggering amount from previous incarnations.

It left some of us with an unquenchable thirst for urban planning…

(viewer discretion advised)

Wouldn’t touch heroin nit needles with a 5000 metre pole

It smells pure toxic one time I watched a friend setup in front of me outta the blue

Nasty nasty stuff

Morphine is processed opium.  Heroin is morphine with an extra OH group added.  IIRC.  Heroin ( diamorphine) is used medically.

Fentanyl is 1000 times stronger – doses are in microgrammes not milligrames hence if you have a poor batch of heroin and decide to spice it up a bit with fentanyl its very easy to get dosages very wrong hence the ODs on fentanyl

I think its a bit alarmist to say all illegal drugs are contaminated.  I do not believe this is so. Recreational drug takers are quite discerning about their stuff ( not addicts – they will take any old shite )

Look on wedinos results, most stuff is not cut with other stuff.

I can get weed on prescription now in Germany (private prescription, the public health insurance won’t cover the costs).

Got my delivery today.

https://tinypic.host/image/unnamed.2aONMa

‘roach’ !

Incredible the number of people on cycling forum clued up about recreational drugs.

Is there a connection ?

I doubt it.  Just that a significant % of the population take drugs – and I also had a professional interest that let me to read up on a lot of stuff and took me into corners of this world many never see

Do we think weed will ever be sold legally in th U.K. I think it is only a matter of time.

We have (restricted) legal access to nicotine and alcohol, which also raises taxes which “could” be used to help with rehab and wider issues.

There are costs to the NHS, society and the environment too.

Yes.  Its coming.