What is your stance on drugs? Should we legalise/control them or not?

[Froozy]

I was reading and came across this

http://uk.news.yahoo....banned-011919288.html

I've done some research and these legal highs the kids are taking can be pretty lethal and no one knows the long term effects of them, one i was reading about even brings on Parkinsons disease!

In Holland and Portugal i believe that casual drug laws have made crime figures decrease so should we adopt a more liberal stance?

Should we legalise them so that our kids can safely do drugs where they know exactly what's in it, know the dosage and cut out the evil drug dealing middlemen?

I would prefer my kids to buy clean drugs from the government rather then off some shady criminal in a dangerous area where they could be taking a lethal cocktail, wouldn't you?

(By kids i don't mean children)

[emmie]

it may be valid, perhaps people do get addicted, no idea, but it wasn't to do with the original post. Only jno made a point, yet again i might add when this matter was raised before, about including such medication as ibuprofen.

[LazyGun]

We licence and allow harmful drugs for general use. Alcohol and tobacco. They have enormous harmful impacts on health and society. Indeed, as a society, we even encourage and admire the excess consumption of alcohol - its a joke, the done thing.

The way we should be looking at the drugs problem is this. Would the harm to individuals and society increase if you were to legalise them, or decrease?

My feeling is that the total harm to society would be decreased, and that therefore the best way to protect society and individuals as a whole would be to legalise the majority of recreational drugs.Those that have been shown to do serious and immediate harm, or those that have been demonstrated to be extremely addictive and/or seriously compromise your ability to function in society should remain banned.

[mazie]

Salvia divinorum is legal in the UK trigg. It's also know as Seer's Sage

[mazie]

I grow Brugmansia and that's fairly potent as well.

p.s. I grow it for the flowers not the LSD like drug

[emmie]

then legalise them, and then we can cut crime right down, as it seems to go hand in hand with gangs, gun crime. People have been taking mind altering drugs for years, the big difference now is that there is huge money to be made, and lives are being lost not just in taking drugs but in the wholesale distribution of them.

[ChuckFickens]

Oooo, Brugmansia flowers are pretty.

Is it difficult to grow? (for purely atheistic reasons of course)

[EDDIE51]

We are again getting confused between drugs which are addictive and those which are habit forming. I know people who have a habit of laxative taking, one woman I know takes 16 exlax tabs a day, but they are not addicted, they can live without them (even if they can't sh!t )
Addicts have a changed body chemistry and can not exist without their drug.

[Mick-Talbot]

mazie

I grow Brugmansia and that's fairly potent as well.

p.s. I grow it for the flowers not the LSD like drug



Are you sure, mazie ? ....it would explain your rather strange headgear.

[ummmm]

Also Em, the problem is what the dealers cut them with.

[emmie]

umm, yes i know, that is half or more of the problem, i have heard some absolute horror stories of stuff that has been mixed in, and the deaths were not pretty..

[mazie]

LOL, I'm sure Mick :o)

Yes they are chuck and very easy to grow from seed. I get a lot of my seed from the States. I grow mine in containers and overwinter them in the Greenhouse. As long as you can keep the frost off them they do well. They should not be allowed to dry out in the summer and need a feed once a week. Red spider mite and caterpillars love them, so that's a bit of a down side. I had one that grew to about 10 foot and we counted over 300 blooms one year.. I've got some pictures somewhere I'll try and dig them out.

[Svejk]

Wasn't it only circa 1970 when 'common' people started getting access to drugs that our 'betters' criminalized them?

[emmie]

mind altering drugs have been around a lot longer than we have, many societies use them for their rites, or as a way of getting out of mind numbing poverty, deaden the brain with a substance that costs little in money, but a lot in addiction. I was thinking of the opium smokers primarily

[emmie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium

[Kromovaracun]

On heroin - there's an interesting article by Nick Davies, who demonstrates that heroin in its purest/cleanest form, while still being incredibly addictive, actually does little damage to a user's body:

http://www.flatearthn...ong-war-against-drugs

There's also this article by Ben Goldacre, who argues in favour of heroin prescription for addicts, and also gives an interesting historical background to the use of heroin in the UK:

http://www.badscience...methadone-and-heroin/

[andy-hughes]

Increasingly, I am moving towards a society where illegal drugs are legalised.

We don't have a choice about whether or not we have drugs in our world - that particular genie has been out of the bottle for a very long time. Our choice now is only how we deal with their distribution, and their effects.

Since there is a massive world-wide criminal element involved in ilegal drugs - which by definition looks for profit and therefore adulterates all supplies to increase that profit - it makes sense to eliminate it by bringing manufacture and idstribution under government control.

Of course, this will never happen. We have only to look at the namby-pamby hangwriging and wilful inaction over the use and absue of alcohol to see that any tampering with the law as it stands would be a serious and catastrophic vote loser.

The only Party that would legislate for legalisation would be the party that really doesn;t fancy another term in governemnt, and one that is happy to see its legilsation dismantled by the opposition who will have swept into powe with a campaign based on that promise alone.

Drugs and their attendent problems are here for the forseeabel future, because our culture sees drugs as dangerous, illegal and far too enjoyable by one generation, and fun, exciting and cool by the next.

That circle will perpetuate until we have (ta-daaa!) meaningful drugs education which costs money - which no government will spend, so round we go again.