Desert Shaikh

WTF are they thinking.

http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/street-dru...avoid-jail-105

OleJanx

They're NOT thinking.

Paracletus

Over filled prisons most likely..Why they don't just start taxing this junk is beyond me.

Boomhauer

If it is small amounts then I am not soo sure that being lenient is such a bad thing. Prison tends to radicalize . The drug war in the US is to a large extent a racket maintained in place by the vested interests such as law enforcement, judiciary and private prisons. I don't think Marijuana possesion and or distribution should be illegal so would favour lenient punishment.

Paracletus

I think Portugal has some success on its drug laws..the 'war on drugs' has killed how many? It's not going to go away..people who want to smoke a spliff will, but I doubt anyone would go buy heroin tomorrow if it was legalized over night.

Norm_uk

The war on drugs doesn't work on any level....time for politicians to accept some people are going to do drugs and let the state make a few bob off of that, put criminal gangs out of business and then focus on harm reduction like we do with booze and fags.

N.

Paracletus

Wahey!

On a side note, drug production has generally increased after american military intervention..See Golden triangle and now Afghanistan. I am so sick and tired of the 'problems' of drug use being swept under the carpet without any reasonable proposals on the table on how to deal with it. My guess is that police officers probably have a better handle on this than the government..I'd rather see someone behind bars for assaulting someone than smoking a spliff..Plus providing a product produced with a certain degree of quality control is more appreciated by the consumer. Availability of drugs does not consequently turn into a place of more drug users...Holland has one of the lowest occurences of teenage pot smokers in Europe supposedly. They have a lot of problems relating to their model, but it's an alternative non the less..but alot to be learnt from it I think.

Also, whilst talking about ridicolous wars..the war on terror..a war on the consequence of war? Anyway..

Spugsy

Here's another persepective

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...th-about-drugs

lullabelle

Yep, decriminalise, tax, sell safely. Spusgy's link is spot on. Make things "bad" and people, especially rebellious young ones, will be desperate to do them. Not sure this is accurate for all but because my parents were right old hippies and grew their own, let us have wine etc, but neither myself or my siblings were that bothered about drugs and booze. It's hard to be in the thrall of drugs when your mum has a toke every night whilst watching the telly and the kitchen windowsill is full of plants.

Not the same I know BUT I stockpile booze like there's no tomorrow here. I'd never have an entire variety of spirits sitting in my fridge at home. Maybe the odd bottle of wine. Here, I'm obsessed.

Paracletus

I noticed my consumption of pork products increased wildly too..bacon, sandwiches with pate and sausages for breakfast and lunch..pork chops, pork tenderloin, etc for dinner. Though I suppose I hardly moved from that pork counter when I went shopping anyway.

Norm_uk

Quite right, I think one thing the forces in Afghanistan (not just the US there) fail at is NOT buying poppies form them - instead we buy from countries like Turkey (who have actually harmed Europe, still occupy half of Cyprus and can't seem to accept they treated the Greeks, Armenians and Kurds far worse than any Israeli occupation ever treated any Arab. We could reduce the cost of medical morphine by buying from Afghans...and this would likely take the drug trade out of the hands of terrorists and encourage people to farm rather than take up arms.

Something I wonder is how was it that we had legal cocaine, heroin and cannabis for centuries and civillisation didn't collapse but from the 1900s onwards we felt it needed to be placed in the hands of nasty criminals instead of governments who treated it as a taxable commodity.

N.

Paracletus

Been some shortage in poppies for drug production (morphine and other medical drugs) too recently due to not purchasing from Afghanistan I'm sure I came across somewhere.

And yes, strange how it all became illegal suddenly.

"See I think drugs have done some good things for us. If you don't think drugs have done good things for us then do me a favor. Go home tonight and take all of your records,tapes and all your CD's and burn them. Because, you know all those musicians who made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years? Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreal ****ing high on drugs, man." - Bill Hicks (the true prophet and son of God if there ever was one)

Paracletus

If you have 100 minutes to spare.

Norm_uk

Until just after the turn of the last century you could buy cocaine, heroine and cannabis from your local pharmacy. There was no major drug problem, the legendary opium houses were restricted to a few 'speakeasies' and catered to the rich and odd (or both). There were no drug cartels as we know them (well...the government I suppose hehe) but none of the gang killings related to what happened when they were made illegal.

Prohibition doesn't work, and humans have been taking drugs for millennia - civillisation is still here. It's all about controlling the plebs, helping drug companies make money from artificial crap people can grow themselves and funding law enforcement agencies that don't need to exist.

N.