Drug habits

Dont talk ****. If you think this is a fascist state, you haven't understood fascism very well

 

I don't think it is, I do think it is heading that way (or will be an arm of one) ... personal opinion

 

We are so unbelievably centrist as a nation it beggars belief. Our commitment to human rights shows how un-fascist we are. There is no valid fascist movement in this country

 

But possibly based on flawed understanding of what fascism and a fascist regime involves it seems. Of course no one can say what the future holds - for all we know we could have a dictator running the show in a decade - but for now nothing tangibly points in the direction you're saying.

 

lol our commitments to human rights that THIS government would like to extract itself from.

 

The daily mail/express scum canuts have been calling for that, not the government.

In case you didn't realise, we have more judges in the ECHR than any other nation, and we were instrumental in writing the frickin legislation

 

OK I will revise my comment to disclude the majority of the Tory party ... as yet!

 

a decade is an unbelievably short time

 

Oh! and I have to ask as some of you differ in your opinions ... Does a fascist regime have to be a dictatorship or can it actually be headed by a collective of very rich and powerful business magnates with a closed agenda?

 

absolutely, but fascism is fundamentally a belief that a government can be most effectively run for the good of the people when an exclusionary penal system is adopted for those outside of what is considered the good of the state. If you break the law, you lose your rights. If you belong to the wrong groups, you lose your rights. This is fascism. The belief that it's powerful people running things for their own agenda is a misinterpretation of it as a political system

We have a very inclusionary society, therefore we are not fascist. No major political groups are heading towards an exclusionary society either

 

Usually 10 years.

 

Not when you're 9 years old.

 

Oh! Ok then, maybe not fascist but then I am lost for a name to hang on it! .... It's just that I thought I saw some of the signs - a greatly empowered Police force, greatly increased surveillance, markedly increased media led patronization of our armed forces, a seemingly deliberate dumbing down of the populus.... I must be wrong then, maybe these are just coincidences?.

 

I feel strongly about this subject as I have had much personal (not me, but people very close) involvement and also professional involvement in the world of drugs over the years.

On this thread we have seen a few posters preach drug liberalisation, and even full legalisation. They come up with lots of idealistic drivel but precious little facts. I have specifically asked for facts to prove that legalisation works, yet they have come up with precious little.

Hectic says this “I think all drugs should be legalised”. Not decriminalise drugs, not legalise cannabis alone, but “I think all drugs should be legalised”

Fair enough, but it would be very useful to have some evidence that such a policy would actually work, as I sincerely have my doubts. Despite many requests, Hectic provides no evidence of any success, but just tries to nit-pick at anything I say.

So I did a little bit of research myself.

I may be wrong, but I cannot find any Countries that have legalised drugs, so there is no evidence to help Hectics cause (feel free to provide info to the contrary).

There are obviously some Countries that have “decriminalised” drugs in some way, for example Portugal. They initially took action in 2001 due to the massive drug related HIV problem and since then they have had some success. Latterly though, the extent of the success has been questioned, partly because Portugal had unique circumstances which meant that their success wouldn’t be easily exported to other Countries, but partly because the figures do not stack up as clearly as first thought for example;

Drug related deaths more than doubled since from 2002 to 2007 and were on an upward curve.

Drug induced deaths (overdoses) went down for first 3 years but have been increasing since 2005.

View attachment 2176 View attachment 2177 View attachment 2178 (EDIT - I have just seen that these attachments are not really readable, sorry about that!)

The leading and renowned expert in Portugal, a Dr Coello, who is heavily involved in the rehabilitation program says when discussing trying to regulate drugs “How is it possible to keep young people away from drugs, when everyone knows exactly how many pills can legally be carried around?”

There are lots of discussions on Portugals drugs initiative online. But what is clear, is that they have not “legalised” drugs and has not be an overwhelming success that could easily be used here.

Hectic points to Holland as a great example, yet Holland hasn’t legalised drugs either! They are much softer on drugs, but the short report attached above on how that has/or hasn’t worked in Holland. It doesn’t make for pleasant reading.

Switzerland tried to soften their stance on drugs, but gave up, so has Ireland.

I fail to understand how anyone strongly advocate the legalisation of drugs, yet have no evidence of success anywhere else!

When I was a teenager, slowly getting p****d in a pub, before being thrown out at closing time (10.30pm), I and my mates would moan about the drinking restrictions, pointing to the freedom in other countries, bars open all day and night. But that doesn't mean that it is the right way to go.

Intelligent people like Hectic and Godfather should realise that not everybody has the same strength of character as they may have, and others need some extra help from the Law to point them in a safer direction (in my opinion). Non experts should not be faced with the choice of whether legalised hard drugs are safe for them to take, in their particular circumstances. It is clear. Hard drugs are illegal, they are no good, do no good and have no chance of doing you any good. Stay away.

 

that would seem to implicitly endorse the current government strategies as being wholly successful, no?

 

I do not endorse drugs soft or hard and have only compared ways we can rid the world of them. Personally I think we won't be able to but we may be able to control the expansion in their use by various means and I am not blind to a single tactic. If it simply came down to saving the tax payer money they would be legalised but it's not something any government could afford to get wrong, peoples lives are at stake.

 

I'm not sure. I certainly feel that full legalisation shouldn't be contemplated yet. Lives are too precious to be part of an experiments endorsed by people that are already into the drug culture. But I have been impressed with some of the progress in dealing with drug offenders who have gone through a rehab program instead of being kept in prison. I personally know of two such people who are now still clean and one has a job.

There are many strategies we can be trying in terms of different ways of dealing with addicts and those "forced" into crime through their drug dependence, without making drastic changes such as legalising all drugs.

 

The proper way to go IMO is to is to further develop detection apparatus for use widely in the workplace and literally give people the choice of a meaningful career or a life of destitution and not the option of both. It matters little if using it is decriminalised and the supply is controlled or if it remains illegal altogether but if the former it will present better opportunities for reform.

Of course you must create the jobs first.

 

I dont think the civil liberties crowd and Unions would allow that.

 

And I think they would welcolme it ... (but not the tokers obviously)

It is already being done on building sites by the way (company H&S initiative, not Police).

 

Well of course it isn't fascism in a nationalistic sense but it is capitalism at its most extreme with an almost equal disregard for humanity ... for these special beings at the top it really is a world of plebs and ants and drones.

I'll be more specific ... Those far right MP's and Lords that do want ECHR exclusion want it for one reason - personal wealth - To them lower wages equals higher profits.
Higher profits, more power and that power buys them more friends. Friends that just happen to head the organizations needed to keep their agenda at the top of the pile and so it goes on. They will occasionally stop to argue that others will open thousands of new factories/shops and employ hundreds of millions before continuing merrily with their task of crushing all competition. Unfortunately they are actually blind to society.

And do people vote for them thinking it will all rub off on them?...
I'm afraid they do, we really are a nation full of mushrooms.

 

The prohibition of narcotics undoubtedly causes more harm than the narcotics themselves.

 

Sorry what I meant, was that no-one as a new born baby starts with that attitude. Food is necessary and we all start eating it to survive. Yes, absolutely right, what you describe sadly happens and those people obviously have a mental illness issue that cause them to do that, and they should get all the help they need.

 

How do you know that?

 

a voice told him on his last trip

 

I was watching the program on the telly last night about beauty treatments which went wrong, women who had all sorts of crazy chemicals injected into their faces to change their looks. The damage was horrific, one lady fell into a coma and ended up having both her hands cut off to stop gangrene!

It's quite hard to feel sorry for people who abuse their bodies in this way. Feel's kind of similar to my view on people who take hard drugs.

There's no point to my post, I just thought there were interesting similarities....

 

Yep, I can identify with that.

As a teenager travelling across Africa, our little group ventured into some sort of hashish making building in Marrakech where they burned cannabis in a room where the walls and ceilings were covered in hessian. The 'smoke' settled on the hessian and was then scraped off as some sort of black substance that resembled sticky oxo cube. We bought a little and tried it back at our hotel (grotty tent arrangement) and for a few hours in a hazy stupor in which, from memory, we seemed to be mostly naked and cuddly, our little group (me included) decided that it was absolutely right that all drugs should be legalised.

Edit: Just as a little bit of balance here (lest I get accused of glorifying drugs), one of the aforementioned group (of 5 girls, 4 lads) died within 6 months, overdosing on heroin in Istanbul and another, who was my "sort of " girlfriend for a year, died in a similar manner back in her Swedish hometown in 1978. Another is now a drugs councillor in Hamburg (so had probably 'slipped' at one stage) and another helps run a rehb centre in Oxford - a recovering drug addict. All intelligent people, but I reckon at lest 4 out of our 9 succombed to drugs in some way.

 

I once bought a bag of grass the size of a large cushion from a Bedoin in the Sinai for £5 Egyptian (£1.40 then). I got it so cheap because it was full of sand from his travels ... totally unsmokable but it did make a huge pot of the most ridiculous tea.

Got conned in Luxor though ... I was shown a big lump of very nice hash but as I was sorting the dollars he switched it ... Yup muggins here paid good money for what was quickly discovered to be rolled camel droppings.

 

...and you've never been the same since!

 

I have ... occasionally

 

Bet that gave you the hump.


I'll get my coat.

 

We were all thinking it so thank you for posting it.

 

I agree, but at least these people believe that they will get some longer term benefit, more money, more boyfriends/girlfriends, better job, etc.

But what possible long term benefit can anyone taking hard drugs expect?

 

Meanwhile in the city another trader snorts a long one "it's good for the concentration don't you know?"

 

Tell that to The Beatles