Marijuana

[boboff]

See I don't agree with the "if it's band kids will want it" arguement.
They want it to get off there faces, which is a really really ancient tradition.
Those in power though don't want the prols off there faces as they steel and loot and vandalise, and don't pick as many carrots the next day.
In many ways I agree that dope is less harmfull than Alcohol as a drug, but it is not as tasty!
Smoking is bad for you no doubt.
Drugs in general though are very bad for society, kids spliffed up in Bedsits, not working, scrounging, not washing, having kids, watching Jeremy Kyle, it's not good, and we should do what we can to stop it, this isn't just banning it, it's education, social housing, parenting classes, welfare, job creation etc etc. The drug is not the problem, it's what it does to "some" that take it....

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Drugs in general though are very bad for society...

I agree. I suppose what I'm thinking of is the lesser evil. I appreciate that it would mean (almost certainly) an increase in the number of people indulging, but I suspect the increased level of damage would be offset by a decrease in the level of criminal activity. We might even be able to afford something more in the way of public services from the revenue, which would be nice.

Some people are going to get ripped to the niblicks anyway, no matter how much the downsides are explained to the them in words of one syllable - might as well try to make something of it.

[boboff]

I really don't know what the answer is.
I can't see taxing it and condoning it really ever working effectively.
I do however feel really sad about the state that young and not so young people get into when they are dependant on drugs, those people really need help, but how you do it I do not know, it has to come from parenting but when the parents are as bad in many cases there is little in the way of hope.
Dope does become less effective the more you take, and that can lead to class a abuse, which takes the whole thing up another level. I am Not saying all pot heads will become Skanks but some will, and that is bad.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I don't know what the answer is either. I'd like to see some kind of decriminalisation conducted on an experimental basis, and I suppose that cannabis would be where I'd start. I has the advantage that it could be cultivated locally, which means it can be controlled from plant, through refining and right to the final product. Sell quality assured joints in packets of 10 for £15 / €18 and the illegal trade would evaporate. Certainly the history of things like the gin craze in England and prohibition in the US suggest that this would happen, though I understand that bootleg spirits are again appearing in the UK.

The problem, as my late mother was fond of pointing out, is that once the genie is out of the bottle it can be a devil of a job getting it back in again.

[MKG]

But is there a genie at all? I have a feeling that, purely as a result of illegality, if you know where to get hold of one drug you know how to get hold of them all. And, let's face it, it isn't going to be rocket science to discover where to get that first one. I suspect, then, that by far the majority of potential drug users are potential no longer. We already have just about our full complement.

Open availability, if the above is the case, makes sense. It gets the real criminals - the bulk sellers - out of the system.

Mike

[oldjerry]

I think one of your problems with the criminalise/decriminalise arguement is this.Most people seem to be under the impression that society needs on occasion to save us from ourselves.By decriminalising they would say that the state is suggesting that the drugs aren't as evil as they've always been telling us,yet experience has shown that through education,high taxation and other restrictions,some unhealthy habits eg: smoking, can be deterred and the state make some cash at the same time.So moving from one position to the next,though perhaps logical would be Politics worthy only of the Liberal Democrats (i.e. suicidal).

[boboff]

I typed band instead of banned, boy am I rubbish at spelling! Sorry.

[merlin]

I wonder if allowing it to be sold in shops, like alcohol and tobacco would help. I mean, if you can go and buy it legally, market forces would probably bring the price down anyway. Mind you, the tax would be high I suppose. If it were legal to but it, I suppose it would be legal to grow some, like making beer and wine at home, now that’s a good idea, lets all make booze, then we can all be legal together.

[gregorach]

OK, coming out time...

As an otherwise respectable, law-abiding chap with a decent job, a mortgage, and an allotment who just happens to like a toke on a daily basis, I am very much in favour of legalisation. I want to be able to buy organic fair-trade dope.

I find some of the stereotypes kicking around in this thread both absurd and offensive. Middle-class types have always looked down on the "lower orders" and their pass-times and cast about for causes of their (presumed) fecklessness, despite the fact that exactly the same activities are enjoyed by people at all levels of society. You just don't notice the rest of us because we don't match your stereotyped ideas of "drug users". Oh, and I do live in the "real world". Just because most people's youthful experience with dope usually involves getting completely muntered, doesn't mean that you can't enjoy it in a more sensible and responsible fashion - just like booze. In fact, I believe I probably have a rather stronger grip on reality than a number of other folks getting all self-righteous around here...

The cachet of illegality was definitely a factor in my starting. But it's OK, I'm glad I'm a toker. I feel it's been a positive factor in my life.

Now, these cheap alcopop "ciders", on the other hand...

[Durgan]

Mexico: Fifty thousand people killed, which are mostly dug related, since 2006.

The insatiable demand in the U.S. for illegal recreational drugs is sustaining the Mexican cartels. USA prisons are inundated with people incarcerated, due to marijuana use, exacerbated by minimum mandatory sentencing.

Only a dumb person does he same thing repeatably expecting a different result. The present right wing Canadian CPC Government recently passed a crime bill aping the failed USA drug policies.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012 ... g-war.html

[oldjerry]

"gregorach"]OK, coming out time...

As an otherwise respectable, law-abiding chap with a decent job, a mortgage, and an allotment who just happens to like a toke on a daily basis, I am very much in favour of legalisation. I want to be able to buy organic fair-trade dope.

I find some of the stereotypes kicking around in this thread both absurd and offensive. Middle-class types have always looked down on the "lower orders" and their pass-times and cast about for causes of their (presumed) fecklessness, despite the fact that exactly the same activities are enjoyed by people at all levels of society. You just don't notice the rest of us because we don't match your stereotyped ideas of "drug users". Oh, and I do live in the "real world". Just because most people's youthful experience with dope usually involves getting completely muntered, doesn't mean that you can't enjoy it in a more sensible and responsible fashion - just like booze. In fact, I believe I probably have a rather stronger grip on reality than a number of other folks getting all self-righteous around here...

The cachet of illegality was definitely a factor in my starting. But it's OK, I'm glad I'm a toker. I feel it's been a positive factor in my life.

Hope you didn't get that idea from me.I have a problem with 'being saved from myself',not people taking presently illegal substances.
Of the dozen or so people I drink with,at least 6 smoke weed regularly(as in buy their own),all are employed(one as a steel erector!) and all come into the 45-65 age bracket.I don't,simply because I've young kids and so there's no smoke around the house.The once a flood occasion that I get to go somewhere without them,I'll usually end up wrecked on something,who doesn't?

I guess the main advantage of blanket decriminalization would be the drop in burglary in urban areas,the disadvantage?....maybe it wouldn't be so much fun.

[boboff]

I can see no problem with it being used by an adult, and I don't have any middle class stereotypes in mind, but I still say that young people in towns who regularly take drugs of different strengths and classes, CAN be a bit of a menace to society, it's a generalisation yes I know, and I know other legal drugs CAN have the same effect, I get all that, and I get that these people in society have failed before they have got to the drug thing, BUT, in my experience of running a Pub especially and to a lesser extent a business, when people have a problem with drugs, Heroin, and to a lesser degree Canabis, they CAN become more anti-social than with other types of substance abuse, and if legalising it increased that by only say 10% then I say that is too high a price to pay. It's not my being self righteous, it's just that I don't see that any good can come of it.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I don't really care about people actually taking drugs - that's their choice. I do care about the fallout - the murder, violence, diversion of scarce resources in countries that can't afford it, the extra-judicial killings, corruption - that comes from the fact that they are illegal.

Much of that happens far, far away in what, presumably, is not the "real world" in countries where the stuff is grown and /or processed. Which is why I think there is an argument for at least some level of decriminalisation. If that makes me a middle-class stereotyper with my head up my backside then fair enough

[gregorach]

BUT, in my experience of running a Pub especially and to a lesser extent a business, when people have a problem with drugs, Heroin, and to a lesser degree Canabis, they CAN become more anti-social than with other types of substance abuse

Ask any ER nurse which drug causes the most anti-social behaviour, and you'll get the same answer - alcohol. By several orders of magnitude. Spend Friday night in any ER in the country and you'll see absolute carnage, practically all of it fuelled by drink. And yet we remain able to be more-or-less sensible about alcohol, and resist the urge to tar all drinkers with the same brush and call for publicans to be flogged and hanged.

I don't really care about people actually taking drugs - that's their choice. I do care about the fallout - the murder, violence, diversion of scarce resources in countries that can't afford it, the extra-judicial killings, corruption - that comes from the fact that they are illegal.

Much of that happens far, far away in what, presumably, is not the "real world" in countries where the stuff is grown and /or processed. Which is why I think there is an argument for at least some level of decriminalisation. If that makes me a middle-class stereotyper with my head up my backside then fair enough

No, that's a perfectly reasonable concern, and one which I share. Of course, similar problems apply to many perfectly legal products as well... For example, if you own any cotton that isn't guaranteed fair trade (and I'll bet that you do), you're supporting both child slavery and the torturing, mass-murdering dictatorial regime in Uzbekistan. People don't seem to get as wound up about that for some reason.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

For example, if you own any cotton that isn't guaranteed fair trade (and I'll bet that you do), you're supporting both child slavery and the torturing, mass-murdering dictatorial regime in Uzbekistan. People don't seem to get as wound up about that for some reason.

You might be quite surprised what I get wound up about. And you have no idea what I have in my wardrobe.