Canada2006

I personally know someone who used a lot of weed and was diagnosed schizophrenic when he was 30.

I'll be staying well away from the stuff.

dbd33

I suppose it depends what you mean by "a lot". Most of my locally born colleagues smoke half a joint or so per day, usually with a beer. I'd say that's normal for here. It may that it's hurt them in some way but it would be hard to determine as finding a Canadian who doesn't smoke would be a challenge.

SnowyWhite

Not normally an effect of daily use of Weed !! Maybe his habits are a little more serious than you know ?

Interesting debate. For what it's worth my opinion is that any drug from caffeine to Meth can be used to enhance the better experiences of your life or escape the less pleasant ones. I've used most things in both scenarios and never had a problem but somewhere there is a line between the two behaviours that certain people cross and have difficulty coming back from.

It seems madness to me though that billions are spent on attempting to enforce laws that the majority of the population don't agree with whilst spending a relative pittance on education and treatment of abusers. It'll take a very brave government to end the 'war on drugs' and I don't see that happening in the UK or Canada in my life time.

kt0157

True.

As they say, a week is a long time in politics. When the dam breaks, it'll break very quickly indeed. Who knows what will trigger that break?

K.

SnowyWhite

[
As they say, a week is a long time in politics. When the dam breaks, it'll break very quickly indeed. Who knows what will trigger that break?

K.[/QUOTE]

A party willing to admit that in every spell of power it had for the last 100 years it misspent Trillions of tax payers money, ignored advice from Scientists, Doctors and Police but now realised it was fighting a losing battle and was willing to take a different approach.

Unlikely to happen but they would get my vote !

In the UK we (still) have the most Draconian licensing laws and the highest levels of alcoholism and teenage binge drinking, the harshest drug laws (for possession) and the highest instances of use and abuse and the worst attitude to sex education and one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates. All compared to the rest of the EU and I expect most Western democracies. I'm not particularly clever but even I can work out that something needs to change.

Still, with losing the Rugby and Cricket over the weekend it's good to know that the UK is still top of the table for something, even if it is getting wasted and sh*gging ...

Daedra

Hard to tell, all I know is he wasn't doing anything else other then pot & cigs when we had our trip to Canada last month... I know he has tried some harder stuff in the past but I never witnessed him doing anything other then weed, probably cos he knew how I felt about harder drugs.

He dismissed his weight loss as being due to the fact that he works in a physical job as manual labour... It's been 2 years since I first pointed it out to him, more in shock then anything when I saw how skinny he'd got since I'd moved to the UK. It might be that, or maybe the fact that he drinks Red Bulls all day long if given the chance? He doesn't seem to sleep 8 hours straight, he usually has the TV on and sleeps on the couch.

All those things though may well just come down to the fact that he's deppressed and has been deppressed since his last long term relationship ended years ago (before I moved here) and he's not gotten any help for it. I've tried talking to him & pursuading him to see a doctor, he says "yeah yeah" and then doesn't do it.

rae

ineffective i'll have, but immoral, hmm think you may be struggling describing the governments attempts at tackling drugs that way, war in Iraq yes. ironically by your argument, the only immoral thing this government may be guilty off is not fighting an effective war, partly by decriminalising cannabis.
it worries me what i have been reading. there appears almost a blase acceptance of cannabis use. Holland is brought up, as usual, and the old arguments of people having the odd smoke, with no effects. people will research no doubt and come up with long term study results with opinion swinging either way, for moderate long term use. i've read lots. the point though is surely should you be so accepting of something which is incontrovertibly harmful, even if its only lung cancer. also, like it or not it is illegal, what example are you setting to openly have this and use this in your home. whats next, 'yeah dad got the t.v. on the cheap, great eh'. yeah don't worry that someone has suffered a burglary to provide you with your 50" worth of entertainment. but don't worry, everyone is doing it and i'm not hurting anyone, its my choice to buy it.

i'm not defending alcohol or tobacco use or misuse, substance abuse in any form is clearly an issue, whether it be the affects it has on health or related criminality.

there has to be the political will and finance to address all the points. the last drugs tsar, Halliwell, gave up. no funding, no real will to look at all the issues, including some quite radical proposals, such as prescription heroin. surely no one advocates, whether it be by cannabis or meth, people losing there way in life due to the misuse of drugs.

dbd33

It's only marginally illegal in Canada and then only to please the US government.

kt0157

[QUOTE=raethe point though is surely should you be so accepting of something which is incontrovertibly harmful, even if its only lung cancer.
[/quote]

I don't smoke. But I don't want it outlawed either. I don't go mountain climbing, but I don't want it outlawed either. Drugs harm no-one other than the people who choose to take them. The illegality of drugs creates a lucrative black market, causes health risks via contamination and puts users outside the protection of the law (thus giving rise to secondary crime such as forced prostitution).

I think a pretty good example of "immoral" behavior is when the state conspires to remove my freedoms against my will for "my protection" and then makes it worse, exposing me to heightened risk of burglary and assault. I think on the whole I'd prefer the Government to mind its own business (which is a shambles and needs proper minding) and leave me alone, thank you very much.

Nice one. Conflating burglary (which does have victims) with drug taking (which doesn't). The analogy is completely bogus. You think that dbd33, by puffing the odd bit of weed, is somehow going round to his neighbour and stealing his TV? If I take alcohol, which is demonstrably harmful and addictive to certain people, I'm somehow causing misery to my my community? The act of drinking it causes a plasma TV to be stolen in some kind of bizarre butterfly effect?

No, not many people do. But gambling, alcohol and tobacco addiction can and do wreck lives but I don't see the Home Office rushing to outlaw those. By making gambling (for example) legal it's possible to regulate it to a level where the extreme forms of harm can be limited. By making it illegal, you can't. We should learn this lesson and legalize (then regulate) the supply of drugs.

K.

kt0157

Quite. I don't subscribe to a moral argument for unquestioningly obeying the law. When the law violates fundamental rights and freedoms, the law can be cheerfully disobeyed*.

K.
*Provided you don't get caught!

dingbat

I'll remember the above highlights when I next explain to a family of young kids why one or both of their parents can no longer take care of them and they are facing life in care. I see parent(s) addiction causing kids harm through neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse....not to mention those kids who have been removed at birth from drug addicted mothers so whacked out they aren't even aware that they have given birth and could not care for an infant even if they sober up long enough to realise they now have one. But of course, these kids aren't victims. What am I thinking?

rae

i disagree i'm afraid and anyway the above is contradictory. drugs do harm other people, by the very health risks you describe, with discarded needles for instance. i suffered a needle stick, even though i was wearing gloves and asked the person if he had a needle which he assured me he didn't. several weeks waiting for aids and hep c results had somewhat of an effect on me and my family life.
the black market as you put it is not the issue, the demand for certain drugs invariably, in some cases, outstrips the ability to pay for it, its this that leads to criminal acts in order to fund it, whether you can buy your drugs on the corner, or the store on the corner, if you havn't the money, the need is such that you will find it somewhere no matter what, to make that purchase.

kt0157

These kids aren't victims of drugs. They are victims of bad parenting. I can be a bad parent without going anywhere near illegal drugs. I can be an alcoholic, smoke 100 cigs a day and give my kid asthma, I can rot my brain sniffing glue, and then bray the kids with a baseball bat. The alcohol, cigs, glue and baseball bats aren't illegal, so why should making some drugs illegal help maltreated kids?

K.

rae

i'd love to drive everywhere at 100mph, i'm most upset at the government removing my freedom to do this, i don't need protecting i'm an advanced police driver with years of experience driving at high speed in dangerous situations, how dare they take away my right to mow down the odd fool who gets in my way, i can do what i want.
great argument, i have a feeling you will be atop the barricades.

dbd33

For the record, I don't smoke. My oh, my children, my colleagues, people all around me, do and it's customary here to offer a joint to visitors so we keep a bag around the house. Similarly, we keep some single malts though I don't drink them. I don't know if the neighbours have televisions but I do know they smoke joints as they do so outside in summer; it's the done thing. AFAIK none have succumbed to reefer madness.

Something really impressive about Canada, btw, is the weed distribution system; even on a lake in a forest in the middle of Newfoundland some guy whizzed up on a trike offering a bag. It's a lot better than the pizza distribution system, though one might expect them to go hand in hand.