The War On Drugs - Sir Richard Branson...

[Baby_Sham]

Wasn't sure where to post this, but 'news' seems kind of relevant.

Sir Richard Branson thinks the 60 year war on drugs, which has been "a complete failure", should end.
He is of the opinion that people with drug problems should not be sent to prison, but should be sent to treatment centres and be helped, allowing them to become valuable members of society.

How can it "end" though, there will always be the criminals who supply these drugs, and you can't "treat" absolutely everyone. Not everyone wants to be helped.

As a side note, RB is either developing Parkinsons, or has a serious amphetamine problem :P

[LazyGun]

@Pixie
"these costs would still apply if the drugs were legal, and perhaps would be more widespread, too. I can't see it would save money. And i would say lives are more important than money, anyway"

Not at all sure about that. Much of those trillions of dollars of costs to the public around the globe come from policing efforts, trying to control the drugs trade and then policing the drug -related crimes. A lot of the health costs associated with drug abuse could be ascribed, at least in part, to the fact that drugs are considered illegal so people will not seek medical help early enough; And because the drugs trade is illegal there are no quality controls over what goes into the drugs.

If you legalise the drug trade, regulate the manufacturing process, that offers greater security over the quality of the drugs themselves, and the exchequer get revenue from a trade that was formerly illegal and hence no tax no duty was paid, but now would be - and that revenue could offset costs of treatment etc.

There was a spate of cases of amputations in Glasgow back in the 1990s for instance, of heroin users, because the drug dealers there were cutting the heroin with all sorts of foreign additives, one of the most common being concrete dust which unfortunately lead to all sorts of serious health complications for IV drug users, as did the habit of sharing and reusing needles. All of these complications could be largely removed if the trade was legalised.

[pixie373]

Yes, i agree about additives being used. However, even without them the drugs aren't safe. Also, if people are addicted and can buy it cheaper, quicker or more easily from an illegal supplier, i believe they will. Health costs will soar, as will drug-related crime, as more people will use them, purely as they are available, legal, accessible and therefore"acceptable". Mental illnesses will dramatically increase. It needs to be stamped on, not given in to. Imo.

[ClaryS]

Legalising drugs would not make more drug addicts. You would not be able to go into Sainsbury's and buy a couple of lines of Charlie , heck you can't even see the fags you want to buy any more they are all under wraps so if they did legalise certain drugs there would not be a huge rush to try them. Legalising certain drugs would decriminalise them and prevent pushers from recruiting more pushers they had plied with drugs. It would not stop some black market selling as this happens already with booze and fags, but it would make a big dent in the criminal gangs income which is a good thing.

[society]

People who do drugs should be be given / allowed to do drugs until they
self-destruct.

[mikey4444]

Again, I find it difficult to get too worked up over stupid drug addicts. One less addict is one less person who will be selling drugs outside the school gates. More deaths by drug addiction is what is required it would seem.

[pixie373]

Having caught my 15 year old daughter with cannabis, Mikey, i have to disagree there.

[mikey4444]

I wish no harm to come to your daughter Pixie. Hopefully she will see the errors of her ways. Its a very slippery slope that she has embarked upon...not too late to haul her back up though...good luck to you you both.

[DrFilth]

> One less addict is one less person who will be selling drugs outside the school gates. <

i think they would stay away from school gates as they would stand out too much, which schools have you seen them standing outside ?

[mikey4444]

As a bachelor DrFilth, I avoid contact with school gates if at all possible. My comments are more of a general nature and somewhat metaphorical and are taken from various news reports over the years.

However the spirit of my comments still stand. I abhor drug taking.

[Baby_Sham]

A couple of comments have stood out for me...

Society, really? :-/

And Mikey, I have to ask the same as DrFilth, how many schools have you seen drug pushers hanging around outside?

It's an interesting debate, and I'm unsure of which argument I side with, but the fact of the matter is, the current 'war on drugs' just ain't really working.

[Baby_Sham]

Mikey, your answer was not there when I started to type.

*must type faster* :)

[pixie373]

Thank you, Mikey. Yes, I'm worried about her and have contacted a few professionals to hopefully put her on the right track as soon as possible.

[Baby_Sham]

Good luck with your daughter Pixie. I remember my parents going through the same thing with my elder sister when she was the same age, so understand the worry it can cause.
Hopefully it's just a 'phase' though :)

[DrFilth]

mikey there are drugs and there are drugs, i don't think that all people who smoke a herbal cig are going to end up sticking a needle in their arm or put white powder up their nose

[Baby_Sham]

Filth, that's kind of the point I've always made.
It's one thing to smoke weed, but I think it's a pretty HUGE step to then go onto class A's.

[mikey4444]

I am sure that I could be persuaded by an argument that said that decriminalisation of cannabis would work, but I can't foresee a time when a similar arrangement would be a good idea when it came to Heroin. Because that is what is being argued in some circles now....legalisation of hard drugs.

If we use the same argument that the "war on drugs" isn't working, and therefore we should give up the ghost, them perhaps we should use the same logic when it comes to people speeding in built-up areas, like outside schools. We don't seem to be terribly good at stopping that either but perhaps its due to our Policemen being too busy stopping the relatives of murdered black teenagers.

[Baby_Sham]

I think I'm the same, I don't think I would object too much to the legalisation of cannabis, but something sits uneasy with me when I hear the likes of Branson saying all drugs should be legal. I don't know, there's not enough evidence to back up either side of the argument, I suppose.

[mikey4444]

You are entitled to your view Babysham but what more infomation do you need to have to make a decision about Heroin addiction ? Do you think Heroin addiction is somehow a manageable condition ?

[Baby_Sham]

Without wanting to bring the mood down, Mikey, I found my first proper boyfriend dead from a heroin overdose, in the flat we shared, back in 1998.. so no, I don't think it's a "manageable addiction", and I'm more than aware of how lethal it is.
However, I also do not think alcohol is "manageable", and that is freely available.

[EDDIE51]

There is a HUGE diffrence between legalising drugs and decriminalising them .
Most people do not seem to know the diffrence.
Legalising them will do little as all that will happen is drug dealers will become legal companies . Decriminalising means that we do not prosecute drug users but suppply the drugs free of charge under controlled conditions at treatment centres. Users will get 'clean' drugs produced to medical standards at treatment centers as long as they agree to recieve treatment to become drug free. As there is no profit in drugs ( all supplied free)there will be no point in dealers selling them. Dealers go out of business and we can concentrate on helping addicts to be drug free. One of the worse aspects of drugs being illegal is that all sorts of rubbish is mxed in with them to increase the dealers profit, and users share dirty infected needles resulting in dangerous infections such a hepetitis . Decriminalising them will stop this, and free time and money to treat the problems instead of wasting resorces on putting users in jail which never has worked and never will.